topic Re: Keeping columns for the last 12 months in SAS Enterprise Guide

Keeping columns for the last 12 months

hk2013 — Tue, 21 Jan 2020 21:19:55 GMT

I have a data set where the Columns are labeled Month181, month182 , month183, .............., month1810 , month1811, month1812, month191, month192

I want to be able to select the last 12 months for example i want the cols Month1810 to Month199

Month1810 Month1811 month1812 month191 month192 month193

1 0 0 0 1 0

0 1 0 0 1 1

1 1 0 1 1 0

0 1 0 1 1 1

Re: Keeping columns for the last 12 months

PaigeMiller — Tue, 21 Jan 2020 22:45:37 GMT

keep month1810--month199 /* add other variables you want to keep as well */;

in a SAS data step will get you there.

I point out that this is a very poor arrangement of the data for most purposes, and you'd be much better off (for most purposes) with a long data set rather than a wide data set.

Re: Keeping columns for the last 12 months

Reeza — Tue, 21 Jan 2020 23:19:53 GMT

If you'd used 1801, 1802, 1803 etc it would have been easier. Is this structure the original structure of the data? If not, if you every have it in a long structure, it's much easier to work with in that structure.

Re: Keeping columns for the last 12 months

imadjabir — Tue, 21 Jan 2020 23:58:08 GMT

Hello,

Why don't you convert your file into Excel and then delete the observations you don't need.

Re: Keeping columns for the last 12 months

Reeza — Wed, 22 Jan 2020 03:13:03 GMT

Most likely because that's a manual solution that doesn't scale when you do it every month and multiple times. It allows the room for errors to be introduced.