topic Re: How do I create new variables based on entry in Let statement in SAS Programming

How do I create new variables based on entry in Let statement

BN_RN17 — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 23:09:20 GMT

This is somewhat of an odd request, but hopefully someone can help me out.

I need to create new variables for each value entered into a %let statement. Ideally, I would like to have a statement:

%let summary_vars = ____________ where they would then list the summary vars (whether separated by spaces or commas, whichever works). I would then like those to each be a separate variable (can just be numbered), and to work on any number of vars entered.

So, for example:

%let summary_vars = outstanding, exercise, total

WOULD RESULT IN:

summary_vars1 = outstanding

summary_vars2 = exercise

summary_vars3 = total

Does anyone have any ideas?

Thanks!

Re: How do I create new variables based on entry in Let statement

Cynthia_sas — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 23:22:47 GMT

Hi:

It's not really clear to me what you are trying to do. How would you use summary_vars1, summary_vars2 and summary_vars3. Would "outstanding", "exercise" and "total" already be variables in a data sets? What code have you tried and what are you trying to achieve? What does your input data look like? And what are your desired results?

cynthia

Re: How do I create new variables based on entry in Let statement

art297 — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 23:33:24 GMT

Are you looking for something like the following?:

%let summary_vars = outstanding, exercise, total;

data test;

input outstanding exercise total;

cards;

1 2 3

4 5 6

;

data want;

set test;

array summary_vars(3);

_n_=1;

do while (scan("&summary_vars",_n_) ne "");

summary_vars(_n_)=vvaluex(scan("&summary_vars",_n_));

_n_+1;

end;

run;

Re: How do I create new variables based on entry in Let statement

BN_RN17 — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 21:06:37 GMT

Thank you both for your responses.

I apologize for my lack of clarity. There will be empty let statements for users to fill in. The summary_vars are not already variables, they are put in by user. The output should result in one line of results - the headers (summary_var1, summary_var2...) and the results (outstanding, total...). So it should look something like this:
Arthur - the data test portion is not needed because there is no additional information, but the data want looks promising. I need the array to be dynamic based on the number of items in summary_var %let statment. Then I would just need the values to be read into each summary_var in the array.

Thanks again!

Re: How do I create new variables based on entry in Let statement

Tom — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 21:46:49 GMT

Still not clear what the input is. Is it a macro variable? (that is what a %LET statement can create)

Still not clear what the output is. Do you want a SAS dataset as in the example from Art? Or just a report?

Assuming that you have an input macro variable that I will call VARLIST here is a simple data step to populate it.

%* Create an example input ;

%let varlist=total,outstanding,exercise,freq;

* Create dataset WANT using ARRAY statement with initial values ;

data want ;

array summary_var (%sysfunc(countw("&varlist",%str(,)))) $32

(%sysfunc(tranwrd("&varlist",%str(,),",")))

;

run;

proc print ;

run;

summary_ summary_ summary_ summary_

Obs var1 var2 var3 var4

1 total outstanding exercise freq

Re: How do I create new variables based on entry in Let statement

BN_RN17 — Thu, 08 Nov 2012 21:52:39 GMT

EXACTLY what I wanted. Thank you so much!