topic dealing with space in variable in SAS Enterprise Guide

dealing with space in variable

woo — Tue, 21 Oct 2014 21:06:31 GMT

Hello friends,

I have existing dataset XYZ which has space in b/w variable name like below;

finance field

marketing strategy

goal to realign

process in place

now i am trying to using this dataset and wants to rename all above variables...how can i do that - please help.

i am using this logic but its not working.

data test;

set xyz;

rename

finance field=finance_field

marketing strategy=marketing_strategy

goal to realign=goal_to_realign

process in place=process_in_place

;

run;

Re: dealing with space in variable

Reeza — Tue, 21 Oct 2014 21:41:19 GMT

1. Check that SAS didn't already do that for you and isn't showing you a label instead of name. Usually it does by default, though EG can be different.

2. Refer to variable with spaces as 'variable name'n

ie 'finance field'n=finance_field

Re: dealing with space in variable

woo — Tue, 21 Oct 2014 21:49:55 GMT

i did try that way too but getting both variable into the final dataset;

finance field | finance_field

where "finance field" has value and "finance_field" doesn't have anything....

Also validvarname=any giving that WARNING MESSAGE

WARNING: Only Base procedures and SAS/STAT procedures have been tested for use with VALIDVARNAME=ANY. Other use of this option is considered experimental and may cause undetected errors.

Re: dealing with space in variable

Reeza — Tue, 21 Oct 2014 22:00:08 GMT

Post a proc contents from your input dataset?

And/or code/log with any errors messages.

proc contents data=have; run;

Re: dealing with space in variable

SASKiwi — Tue, 21 Oct 2014 22:03:09 GMT

I'm assuming that this data has been imported into SAS from an external source otherwise you wouldn't have variable names with spaces unless you explicitly coded for them like 'finance field'n.

If you re-run your import code with this option:

options validvarname = V7;

It will automatically rename your SAS variables to replace spaces with underscores.

Re: dealing with space in variable

woo — Tue, 21 Oct 2014 22:16:52 GMT

proc contents data=have varnum ; run;

# variable type len format informat label

1 finance field char 16 finance field

2 marketing strategy char 25 marketing strategy

3 goal to realign char 20 goal to realign

4 process in place char 25 process in place

Dataset is already existed and i don't know from which source (row file) or i would reread with my own variable say using "_" in b/w

Re: dealing with space in variable

ballardw — Tue, 21 Oct 2014 22:31:43 GMT

What was the encoding reported by proc contents?

Re: dealing with space in variable

SASKiwi — Tue, 21 Oct 2014 22:35:43 GMT

In that case this works for me:

options validvarname = Any;

data test;

attrib 'Name with blank'n length = $10;

run;

data test2;

rename 'Name with blank'n = Name_with_blank;

set test;

run;

Re: dealing with space in variable

woo — Tue, 21 Oct 2014 22:36:37 GMT

Encoding = wlatin1 Western (Windows)

Engine = V9

Indexes= 0

OBS length=432

Re: dealing with space in variable

Reeza — Tue, 21 Oct 2014 23:22:49 GMT

Then post the code that doesn't work.

Encasing the variable with single quotes followed by a n in the rename statement should work.

Post the log from the following code Your original code modified:

data test;

set xyz;

rename

'finance field'n=finance_field

'marketing strategy'n=marketing_strategy

'goal to realign'n=goal_to_realign

'process in place'n=process_in_place

;

run;

Re: dealing with space in variable

woo — Tue, 21 Oct 2014 23:35:55 GMT

/*This data step has worked for me - i think we don't need two separate data step for it*/

options validvarname = Any;

data test;

attrib 'Name with blank'n length = $10;

rename 'Name with blank'n = Name_with_blank;

set test;

run;

@ Reeza - your code ran fine too...

Thanks a lot all of you