topic Re: How to find the variables that are present in one data set but in others in SAS Programming

How to find the variables that are present in one data set but in others

knveraraju91 — Sun, 10 Jul 2016 22:57:30 GMT

Dear,

I have a dataset with more than 200 variables. How to find the variables that present in my dataset but in vendor dataset. I checked using proc contents procedure. It is taking time. Is there a quick way to identify. Please help.

Thanks

Re: How to find the variables that are present in one data set but in others

Reeza — Sun, 10 Jul 2016 23:34:21 GMT

1. Proc Compare - will print a report.

2. Use SASHELP.VCOLUMN/Dictionary.Column. These are datasets that contain the variables in each dataset. It's worth learning how to use these well.

Give them a shot and if you need more help post the code you've tried.

Re: How to find the variables that are present in one data set but in others

Astounding — Mon, 11 Jul 2016 00:06:14 GMT

Don't run a PROC COMPARE on the data sets themselves. Run it on the output of PROC CONTENTS. For example:'

proc contents data=a noprint out=a_contents;

run;

proc contents data=b noprint out=b_contents;

run;

Then run the PROC COMPARE to compare a_contents vs. b_contents. Use NAME as the BY or ID variable.

Re: How to find the variables that are present in one data set but in others

RW9 — Mon, 11 Jul 2016 09:02:12 GMT

Hi,

Personally I would be worried about the "200 columns", that is never a good way to work and will cause you problems throughout programming with it.

proc sql;
  create table VARS_MISSING as
  select  VNAME
  from    (select * from SASHELP.VCOLUMN where LIBNAME="<your library>" and MEMNAME="<your dataset in upcase>")
  except  (select * from SASHELP.VCOLUMN where LIBNAME="<your library>" and MEMNAME="<your other dataset in upcase>");
quit;