topic Re: SAS Proc and sorting options in SAS Procedures

SAS Proc and sorting options

Paul_NYS — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 14:54:55 GMT

I am using Proc Sort to sort a data set with a specific variable which is a alpha variable. I know the two standard sort options are ascending and descending (and don't see any others), but is there another option for custom sorting by the values in a variable/column?

The values I am trying to sort are (ascend/desc do not order correctly):

1 to 5

6 - 12

13 to 17

18 +

Paul

Re: SAS Proc and sorting options

art297 — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 15:16:14 GMT

Paul, I think you are looking for:

data have;

input column1 $ &;

cards;

1 to 5

6 - 12

13 to 17

18 +

;

proc sort data=have SORTSEQ=LINGUISTIC(NUMERIC_COLLATION=ON);

by Column1;

run;

Re: SAS Proc and sorting options

LinusH — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 15:28:25 GMT

If you always want to sort this column according to numeric value, I think it would be wise to concert the column to numeric.

Re: SAS Proc and sorting options

Keith — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 16:06:49 GMT

makes a good point. If you just store the raw numeric data, you can create and apply a format with the values in your post. If you are summarising the data using any of the usual SAS procs, they will automatically group by the formatted values.

Re: SAS Proc and sorting options

Paul_NYS — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 18:56:04 GMT

Thanks a lot again Art. That works fine.

Paul