topic Re: A Question Regarding Data Management in SAS Procedures

A Question Regarding Data Management

PsycResearcher — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 13:21:30 GMT

Hi all,

I have a question about data management in SAS, and I wonder if anyone can help me.

I have an extremely large dataset. One column of the data represents data entered before the year 2005. Another column of data represents data entered after the year 2005. It looks like following:

ColumnA	ColumnB
.	7
.	9
.	6
.	5
.	3
3	.
4	.
5	.
8	.

( . represents missing data)

If I want to combine two columns into one (let's name it columnC, is there a way to do so in SAS?)

Thank you very much for your help!

Chester

A Question Regarding Data Management

art297 — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 13:51:15 GMT

If the missing values are irrelevant, you might be able to use something like:

data have;

input columna columnb;

cards;

. 7

. 9

. 6

. 5

. 3

3 .

4 .

5 .

8 .

;

data want;

set have (keep=columnb rename=(columnb=columnc)

where=(not missing(columnc)))

have (keep=columna rename=(columna=columnc)

where=(not missing(columnc)));

run;

Re: A Question Regarding Data Management

MikeZdeb — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 17:43:28 GMT

Hi ... another idea ...

data have;

input columna columnb;

cards;

. 7

. 9

. 6

. 5

. 3

3 .

4 .

5 .

8 .

;

run;

data want;

set have;

columnc = coalesce(of col:) ;

keep columnc;

run;

Re: A Question Regarding Data Management

PsycResearcher — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 17:58:27 GMT

Thanks for all your help!

I am new to SAS and I wonder if I can ask you another question about proc content? I am trying to ask SAS to list the variables with descriptions in a dataset but SAS keeps showing the variables in alphabetical orders. Is it possible to ask SAS to list the variables in the order they are in the dataset?

The syntax that I used is as follow:

proc content data=work.datafile;

run;

Thank you very much again!

Chester

A Question Regarding Data Management

NN — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 18:40:47 GMT

Had read somewhere that in proc contents the VARNUM variable give you the position of the variable. Cannot confirm this right now so please check it once.

Re: A Question Regarding Data Management

art297 — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 18:41:13 GMT

I think you want the order=varnum option. The options are described in the following link:

http://support.sas.com/community/newsletters/news/techtips/OrderOption.html

A Question Regarding Data Management

Peter_C — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 22:37:40 GMT

VARNUM option provides the "logical" order

The internal storage order will often be different

The "logical" order is the order in which the variables are "discovered" by the compiler

A Question Regarding Data Management

PsycResearcher — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 14:42:55 GMT

Thanks for being helpful!

Chester