topic Re: arrays for months in SAS Programming

arrays for months

BrahmanandaRao — Wed, 21 Dec 2022 11:06:18 GMT

data months;
array months(12) $ jan -- dec;
run;

1. How to create months January to December

Re: arrays for months

PaigeMiller — Wed, 21 Dec 2022 11:08:42 GMT

Better to keep data in a long format and work with it that way.

If you want a report, use PROC REPORT on the long format data. PROC REPORT can produce columns with whatever names you want from the long format data. We can provide examples.

Re: arrays for months

andreas_lds — Wed, 21 Dec 2022 11:17:57 GMT

Not clear what you want to achieve. Please post data in usable form and show the expected output.

Re: arrays for months

PeterClemmensen — Wed, 21 Dec 2022 11:21:54 GMT

There is no real shortcut like the posted pseudo code. You have to spell them out.

data test;
   array month{*} January February March April May June July August September October November December;
run;

Re: arrays for months

Sajid01 — Wed, 21 Dec 2022 17:20:59 GMT

You need to type all the twelve month names.
jan --dec or January -- December won't work.

Re: arrays for months

SASKiwi — Wed, 21 Dec 2022 21:14:00 GMT

You will make your coding a lot easier if you name your months like this:

data months;
array months(12) $ month1 - month12;
do i = 1 to 12;
  year_array + months(i);
run;
year_sum = sum(of month1 - month12);
run;

You can always label the month variables as Jan, Feb etc.

Re: arrays for months

Kurt_Bremser — Thu, 22 Dec 2022 05:43:08 GMT

Do not keep data (dates) in structure (variable names). Use a long dataset layout where date values are stored as such, with a display format as needed.

A wide layout for reporting purposes can always be created easily with procedures like REPORT or TABULATE.

Re: arrays for months

PaigeMiller — Thu, 22 Dec 2022 12:43:07 GMT

Hello @BrahmanandaRao

You have a lot of suggestions, but the real problem is that you want a wide data set, rather than a long data set from which you create a wide report, as both @Kurt_Bremser and I have pointed out. Working with the long data set eliminates most of the problems doing this.

Here is a simple example of how using a long data set, rather than a wide data set, still results in a wide report. The programming is simple when you do it this way. Solved: Re: format all column names that are similar - SAS Support Communities

In your example, where the wanted columns are months, SAS provides many formats so that you can make the columns in PROC REPORT have meaningful column headings (such as Jan, Feb, etc.) without you actually having to type them in yourself.