topic Re: Specifying character Values as Ranges in SAS Programming

Specifying character Values as Ranges

sasmaverick — Tue, 06 Dec 2016 09:22:26 GMT

Hello, I have the following dataset

data test;
infile datalines;
input Est_inc $3.;
datalines;
008
015
020
040
051
060
061
070
150
;
run;

The values are character but are clean data. I want to specify range as follows, but unsuccesful. Please help.

proc format;
value $ emp;
"008"-"020"="8-20"
"040"-"060"="40-60"
"061"-"150"="61-150"
;
run;

Regards,

Re: Specifying character Values as Ranges

Astounding — Tue, 06 Dec 2016 09:28:58 GMT

It looks like you just need to clean up the syntax of your VALUE statement.

Remove the space after the dollar sign. It might work with the space there, but probably not.
Remove the semicolon after EMP. The VALUE statement doesn't end until later.

Re: Specifying character Values as Ranges

RW9 — Tue, 06 Dec 2016 10:31:04 GMT

Personally I avoid using formats, but even more so when dealing with numbers as characters. Would the text "8" be considered between "008" and "024"? Textually its not. Is there a reason for the format need? Why not just convert to numeric and use numeric ranging - makes more sense as your really dealing with numeric data. Nothing stopping you keeping both, text and num, and using num.