topic Merge fails in SAS Procedures

Merge fails

Belkis_Amaro — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 22:06:19 GMT

Absolute SAS and programming beginner. Stumped on what is wrong with this simple merge code:

data mydata.janfeb;

merge mydata.jan2015 (IN=jan)

mydata.feb2015 (IN=feb);

by acct_id;

if jan=1 and feb=0 then refnum='no_match';

else jan=1 and feb=1 refnum='match';

run;

The result is a log error right after the else jan=1 and feb=1 refnum='match'

ERROR 22-322: Syntax error, expecting one of the following: !, !!, &, *, **, +, -, /, ;, <, <=, <>, =, >, ><, >=, AND, EQ, GE, GT,

IN, LE, LT, MAX, MIN, NE, NG, NL, NOTIN, OR, ^=, |, ||, ~=.

I have proc sort step that runs without errors for both of the files before the data step.

I would appreciate any assistance.

Thank you.

Re: Merge fails

ballardw — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 22:18:24 GMT

There are several problems with this line depending on what you may be attempting to do:

else jan=1 and feb=1 refnum='match';

If the intent was to assign a value to refnum you probably meant:

else if jan=1 and feb=1 then refnum='match';

One does wonder about Jan=0 and Feb=1 ?

You might want to think about coding your match / no match as numeric 1/0 for a number of reasons. One is that you can get a number of useful statistics from various procedures. You can use a custom format to have Match or No match displayed for text as needed.

Another is that you can assign a likely value using this code.

RefNum = (jan = feb); /* assuming that Jan=0 and Feb=1 is not a match*/

If Jan then RefNum = (jan = feb); /* assuming you only want to assign a value for the records from jan*/

Re: Merge fails

art297 — Fri, 10 Apr 2015 23:22:06 GMT

I agree with Ballardw. Are you trying to do something like the following? (Note: I deleted your librefs, as I didn't want to create permanent files on my system):

data jan2015;

input acct_id x $;

cards;

1 a

2 b

3 c

4 d

5 e

;

data feb2015;

input acct_id y $;

cards;

2 B

3 C

4 D

;

data janfeb;

merge jan2015 (IN=jan)

feb2015 (IN=feb);

length refnum $8;

by acct_id;

if jan and feb then refnum='match';

else refnum='no_match';

run;

Re: Merge fails

Belkis_Amaro — Fri, 24 Apr 2015 15:56:16 GMT

Thank you all for your assistance and knowledge!!

I was trying to merge two files and be able to identify on the output which file contributed to the observation. It turned out that I was missing the "if" following the "else" condition:

data mydata.janfeb;

merge mydata.jan2015 (IN=jan)

mydata.feb2015 (IN=feb);

by acct_id;

if jan=1 and feb=0 then refnum='no_match';

else IF jan=1 and feb=1 refnum='match';

Thanks all again. I am sure I will be back in this forum in the near future 🙂

Re: Merge fails

art297 — Fri, 24 Apr 2015 16:01:45 GMT

That shouldn't work either! If you include an "if", you'll also need a "then". e.g.:

else IF jan=1 and feb=1 THEN refnum='match';