topic Re: Help! How can I find out how to &quot;capture&quot; the 2nd obs. within each group?! in SAS Procedures https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Procedures/Help-How-can-I-find-out-how-to-quot-capture-quot-the-2nd-obs/m-p/50837#M13882 If you combine first. and retain I think can get what you want:<BR /> <BR /> data x;<BR /> set y;<BR /> by z;<BR /> retain nGrp;<BR /> if first.z then nGrp = 1;<BR /> else if nGrp = 2 then output;<BR /> nGrp+1;<BR /> run;<BR /> <BR /> Am I on the right track?<BR /> <BR /> /Linus Wed, 01 Oct 2008 10:13:50 GMT LinusH 2008-10-01T10:13:50Z Help! How can I find out how to "capture" the 2nd obs. within each group?! https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Procedures/Help-How-can-I-find-out-how-to-quot-capture-quot-the-2nd-obs/m-p/50836#M13881 Ok, so here's my problem...have spent the past 2 hours trying to find the answer, to no avail. I need to find a way to capture/select the SECOND occurrence of a variable (just call it "flag") returning a value of 1...WITHIN each age group. The data has already been sorted by age group (and then by "flag", which is dichotomous, having a value of 1 or 0). I know how to get the first and last value by using FIRST.group and LAST.group, but I can't figure out how to select the second (or third, tenth, etc., you get the idea). Remember that this is not just the second observation of the data set - this is the second occurrence of flag=1 WITHIN each age group. HELP HELP HELP ASAP!!! And thanks a million! Wed, 01 Oct 2008 07:52:10 GMT https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Procedures/Help-How-can-I-find-out-how-to-quot-capture-quot-the-2nd-obs/m-p/50836#M13881 deleted_user 2008-10-01T07:52:10Z Re: Help! How can I find out how to "capture" the 2nd obs. within each group?! https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Procedures/Help-How-can-I-find-out-how-to-quot-capture-quot-the-2nd-obs/m-p/50837#M13882 If you combine first. and retain I think can get what you want:<BR /> <BR /> data x;<BR /> set y;<BR /> by z;<BR /> retain nGrp;<BR /> if first.z then nGrp = 1;<BR /> else if nGrp = 2 then output;<BR /> nGrp+1;<BR /> run;<BR /> <BR /> Am I on the right track?<BR /> <BR /> /Linus Wed, 01 Oct 2008 10:13:50 GMT https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Procedures/Help-How-can-I-find-out-how-to-quot-capture-quot-the-2nd-obs/m-p/50837#M13882 LinusH 2008-10-01T10:13:50Z