topic Re: What does this line mean? in SAS Programming

What does this line mean?

cdubs — Fri, 27 Oct 2017 00:13:42 GMT

data lab_valid (where=(troponin=1 & result_conv ne .& year>=2011));
set clean.lab_troponin

Specifically, I'm not sure what the "ne .&" means?

Thank you!

Re: What does this line mean?

WarrenKuhfeld — Fri, 27 Oct 2017 00:41:31 GMT

The period is the most common type of missing value. Quite independently, ampersand means AND. The code would be clearer if there were a space between the two.

Re: What does this line mean?

Cynthia_sas — Fri, 27 Oct 2017 00:43:22 GMT

Hi:

That WHERE option is a test for 3 things to be true in order for the observation to be selected. So separate out the & first, and replace it with the logical AND, then the option becomes:

where=( troponin=1 AND result_conv ne . AND year >= 2011)

So, an observation will only be selected if these 3 conditions are all true:

the variable TROPONIN must have a value equal to 1

the variable RESULT_CONV must have a value NOT equal to . (. means a MISSING value for a numeric variable)

the variable YEAR must have a value that is greated than or equal to 2011

With a SAS numeric variable a . is used to represent a missing value. For a character variable a space or blank is used to represent a missing value.

Hope this helps,

Cynthia

Re: What does this line mean?

cdubs — Fri, 27 Oct 2017 00:49:25 GMT

This works as a solution too! THANK YOU!!!!

Re: What does this line mean?

cdubs — Fri, 27 Oct 2017 00:49:39 GMT

Thank you so much!