topic Re: Newbie question here in SAS Programming

Newbie question here

gdok — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 13:52:10 GMT

Hi all,

Pretty new SAS user here and I have search around (google) for this answer but i cant seem to find a good explanation. Can someone give me a hand and take 1 min to reply.

In the following code:
DATA _NULL_ ;
CALL SYMPUT ( 'n_obs' , put ( n_obs, 5. ) ) ;
STOP ;
SET dsname nobs = n_obs;
RUN ;

What does the '5' represent and what is it function?

Thanks!

Re: Newbie question here

martha_sas — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 14:17:33 GMT

The "5." is a numeric format. It says that the output field should have a width of 5. You should always look first in the SAS documentation instead of Google. To learn about the format, look in Base SAS: SAS Language Reference: Dictionary: Dictionary of Language Elements: Formats, for the "w.d" numeric format. Next learn about the "PUT function" that is using that format, by looking in Base SAS: SAS Language Reference: Dictionary: Dictionary of Language Elements: Functions and CALL Routines for "PUT function".

Re: Newbie question here

gdok — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 14:23:10 GMT

thank you very much for the time. I will work on the better research methods you describe! 🙂

Re: Newbie question here

martha_sas — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 14:28:16 GMT

You're welcome. You may want to read the documentation for the "CALL SYMPUT Routine", also in the "Functions and CALL Routines" section.

Re: Newbie question here

martha_sas — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 14:59:56 GMT

I may have been wrong to assume you have documentation available. Do you have anything? What do you get when you use the SAS Help menu? I am not much help if I tell you to look in documentation that you don't have.

Re: Newbie question here

gdok — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 15:23:57 GMT

I was able to find all the references you suggested online. They all start with the address support.sas.com/documentation.