topic Re: How do I replace missing value with previous value, but leave duplicate IDs with missings alone? in SAS Programming

How do I replace missing value with previous value, but leave duplicate IDs with missings alone?

atiedt — Mon, 24 Oct 2016 15:41:00 GMT

Hello,

I have a dataset in long format, with multiple date per ID, which looks like this;

ID Cycle_# Date

1 1 1/01/2016

1 2 2/02/2016

1 3 .

2 1 .

2 2 .

2 3 .

3 1 3/04/2016

3 2 4/12/2016

3 3 5/06/2016

3 4 .

4 1 .

5 1 8/16/2015

5 2 9/01/2016

I used the code below to replace missing dates with previous non-missing values. However, for IDs that do not have any dates (e.g., ID 2 above), I'd like to leave the dates as missing. How can I adjust the code below to prevent IDs with all missing takes from being replaced with the previous date? I'm using SAS EG 7.1.

data t2 (drop=fill new);

retain fill;

do until (date ne . or last.cycle_#);

set t;

by id cycle_#;

end;

if date ne . then fill = date;

do until (new ne . or last.cycle_#);

set t;

by intkey cycle_count;

new = date;

if new = . then date = fill;

output;

end;

run;

Re: How do I replace missing value with previous value, but leave duplicate IDs with missings alone?

Astounding — Mon, 24 Oct 2016 15:47:50 GMT

It's possible there's a simpler way:

data want;

set have;

by id;

if first.id or date > . then fill=date;

retain fill;

drop date;

rename fill=date;

run;

Re: How do I replace missing value with previous value, but leave duplicate IDs with missings alone?

atiedt — Mon, 24 Oct 2016 16:41:43 GMT

Thanks for your suggestion. The code works well to leave the IDs with all missing dates alone, but unfortunately, doesn't replace IDs with more than one trailing missing date.

Re: How do I replace missing value with previous value, but leave duplicate IDs with missings alone?

Astounding — Mon, 24 Oct 2016 16:50:03 GMT

It should work. The only case it doesn't cover is when your first date for an ID is missing. It doesn't look foward to find later dates as a replacement.

Do you have a small example ... a few lines of data that didn't come out the way you wanted?

By any chance, did you use ">=" instead of ">" as the comparison?

Re: How do I replace missing value with previous value, but leave duplicate IDs with missings alone?

atiedt — Mon, 24 Oct 2016 17:21:28 GMT

Yup, small typo. Works fine, thanks so much!

Re: How do I replace missing value with previous value, but leave duplicate IDs with missings alone?

JohnSAScom — Mon, 24 Oct 2016 19:13:36 GMT

Here's a version that doesn't rely on dropping or re-naming data set variables:

A couple of notes:

Missing values for character variables are represented by a blank.
Data set variable names can only contain letters, numbers and underscores.

This is one solution:

data question;

ID = 1;

Cycle = 1;

Date = '1/01/2016';

output;

ID = 1;

Cycle = 2;

Date = '2/02/2016';

output;

ID = 1;

Cycle = 3;

Date = '';

output;

ID = 2;

Cycle = 1;

Date = '';

output;

ID = 2;

Cycle = 2;

Date = '';

output;

ID = 2;

Cycle = 3;

Date = '';

output;

ID = 3;

Cycle = 1;

Date = '3/04/2016';

output;

ID = 3;

Cycle = 2;

Date = '4/12/2016';

output;

ID = 3;

Cycle = 3;

Date = '5/06/2016';

output;

ID = 3;

Cycle = 4;

Date = '';

output;

ID = 4;

Cycle = 1;

Date = '';

output;

ID = 5;

Cycle = 1;

Date = '8/16/2015';

output;

ID = 5;

Cycle = 2;

Date = '9/01/2016';

output;

run;

%macro a;

proc sort data=question;

by ID Cycle;

run;

proc sql noprint;

select count(distinct(ID)) into:distinct_IDs from question;

quit;

%do i = 1 %to &distinct_IDs.;

proc sql noprint;

create table unique_id as

select * from question where ID = &i.;

select count(*) into:TOTAL from unique_id;

select count(*) into:MISSING from unique_id where Date = '';

quit;

%if &MISSING. gt 0 and &TOTAL. ne &MISSING. %then %do;

data _null_;

set unique_id;

if Date ne '' then call symput('last_date', Date);

run;

proc sql noprint;

update question set Date = "&last_date." where Date = '' and ID = &i.;

quit;

%end;

%mend a;

%a;

Thank you,

John