topic Re: dropping variables that are not one word in SAS Procedures

dropping variables that are not one word

aarony — Mon, 21 Apr 2014 03:46:26 GMT

hi, i want to drop a variable called "global company id"

how can i drop this?

simnply saying:

data work1;

set base1 (drop = global company key);

run;

is not working. thank you

Re: dropping variables that are not one word

Reeza — Mon, 21 Apr 2014 03:57:14 GMT

SAS doesn't usually allow variable names with spaces, so either the variable name is actually global_company_id, or if it actually has spaces you need to refer to it as "global company id"n.

Re: dropping variables that are not one word

aarony — Mon, 21 Apr 2014 04:02:05 GMT

thank you so much for your kind reply Reeze:

this is what i got from proc contents

11 at Num 8 F18.4 Assets - Total

12 capx Num 8 F18.4 Capital Expenditures

13 ceq Num 8 F18.4 Common/Ordinary Equity - Total

9 conm Char 57 $57. $57. Company Name

5 consol Char 2 $2. $2. Level of Consolidation - Company Annual Descriptor

22 costat Char 1 $1. $1. Active/Inactive Status Marker

when i view table i see Assets-total. is it possible to at instead of assets-total. it is very difficult to code by looking at the view table.

Re: dropping variables that are not one word

Reeza — Mon, 21 Apr 2014 04:06:39 GMT

Your variable NAME is AT and that's what you should use in your code.

Your variable LABEL is Assets-Total

You can switch the view in SAS by going to View>Column Names, but this doesn't 'stick'.

Yes its a pain in the ass. Another option is to strip all labels from a dataset, but with truncated variable names that has its own problems.

I believe the following line will remove the labels from all variables.

attrib _all_ label = "";

Re: dropping variables that are not one word

ballardw — Mon, 21 Apr 2014 15:05:53 GMT

If you use command instead of the point & click menu to open a data set: Vt <data set name goes here>;colnames; will open view table with names instead of labels.

Or better, open the Keys menu, default F9, and add a command to a key:

vt _last_; colnames;

Then pressing the key combination you selected will bring up the last created data set with column names.

Re: dropping variables that are not one word

Reeza — Mon, 21 Apr 2014 15:14:08 GMT

Thanks, that's handy.

I'd still prefer an option to have the column names show by default rather than the labels.

Re: dropping variables that are not one word

PaigeMiller — Mon, 21 Apr 2014 15:42:02 GMT

Steps 1 through 4 here make the column names the default

http://listserv.uga.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0708d&L=sas-l&P=6458

Re: dropping variables that are not one word

ballardw — Mon, 21 Apr 2014 16:06:35 GMT

And if you want to sort the data in the tables or make data edits add openmode=edit