topic Re: Proc Rank mystery in SAS Procedures

Proc Rank mystery

GVeers — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 15:27:57 GMT

I am executing a proc rank call in a macro that has worked very well to date:

proc rank data=fractile1 groups=&fract out=&outdata;
var &predict;
ranks Fractile;

Strangely, however, I am now working with a dataset where groups=25 and I am instead getting 24 ranks. Rank 18 is somehow getting skipped entirely, so the ranks suddenly go from 17 to 19. There are no non-missing variables in the dataset and the 25 ranks have worked just fine with a different dataset.

Is there anything else I can investigate that could cause proc rank to blip like this?

Re: Proc Rank mystery

Cynthia_sas — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 15:38:38 GMT

This Tech Support note talks about possibly NOT getting equal-sized groups with the GROUP= option:
http://support.sas.com/kb/22/399.html

This may come down to the differences in the data and/or would be something best explored with SAS Tech Support.

To open a track with Tech Support, fill out the form at this link:
http://support.sas.com/ctx/supportform/createForm

cynthia

Re: Proc Rank mystery

GVeers — Fri, 07 Jan 2011 16:43:41 GMT

Thanks Cynthia. That was a great help. The proc rank skipped 18 because there is a huge section of tie values that SAS assigned to rank 19.