topic Re: first. and last. statement within groups in SAS Programming

first. and last. statement within groups

AndreasKirk — Wed, 11 Sep 2013 06:32:32 GMT

Is it possible to use the first. and last. statement within certain groups?

E.g. I have a variable with social security numbers and a variable with years. I have multiple person records each year. I would like to use the first. statement to identify the first observation of each social security number, but for each year. Is this possible?

Re: first. and last. statement within groups

jakarman — Wed, 11 Sep 2013 06:57:24 GMT

Short answer: yes ....

SAS(R) 9.3 Language Reference: Concepts, Second Edition (How the DATA Step Identifies BY Groups)

An example is mot easy found bit it works (long time ago remembering having done)

Re: first. and last. statement within groups

SteffenBille — Wed, 11 Sep 2013 07:10:02 GMT

Data out;

set in;

by social_security_number year;

first.name then output;

run;

Re: first. and last. statement within groups

RichardinOz — Wed, 11 Sep 2013 07:24:50 GMT

Corrected version

Data out;

set in;

by social_security_number year;

if first.year then output;

run;

Explanation

You can have numerous by variables, and for each one first and last automatic variables are generated.

In this case first.social_security_number would return only one record per social_security_number. First.year is updated every time there is a change in the preceding by variable(s) as well as when there is a change in year.

Richard