topic Re: Initializing dataset to have zero observations in SAS Procedures

Initializing dataset to have zero observations

deleted_user — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 16:54:52 GMT

Hi All,

I have a question which seems to be basic but I was not able to get to it in the documentation.

I wanted to know how to initialize a dataset to null(may be null is wrong vocabulary,basically I want the dataset to have zero observations) . Because, looks like I am having one extra empty row(observation) in my dataset before I do any processing on the dataset.

Thanks,
Neel

Re: Initializing dataset to have zero observations

sbb — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 17:21:37 GMT

A few techniques:

1) use the STOP; command in a DATA step (at least before an OUTPUT, if coded).
2) use OPTIONS OBS=0; -- this statement's positioning will depend on the overall SAS program execution objective (considering handling of input and output SAS and external files).

Scott Barry
SBBWorks, Inc.

Re: Initializing dataset to have zero observations

deleted_user — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 18:19:59 GMT

Thanks Scott!

Using "stop;" seems to be working.

Neel