topic Re: How to Change Continuous Variable to Discrete in Statistical Procedures

How to Change Continuous Variable to Discrete

user1359 — Sun, 04 Dec 2022 20:23:39 GMT

I don't know how to change my continous (yob) variable to discrete. I wanted the categories to look like this

2001-1984 (21-32)

1983-1973 (33-43)

1972-1962 (50-60)

1961-1951 (61-71)

Re: How to Change Continuous Variable to Discrete

PaigeMiller — Sun, 04 Dec 2022 21:01:13 GMT

proc format;
    value yobf 1951-1962='61-71'
        1962-1972='50-60'
        1973-1983='33-43'
        1984-2001='21-32';
run;

Then in a data step or PROC, you assign the format to the variable.

format yob yobf.;

Re: How to Change Continuous Variable to Discrete

user1359 — Sun, 04 Dec 2022 22:15:10 GMT

Can you elaborate more

Re: How to Change Continuous Variable to Discrete

PaigeMiller — Sun, 04 Dec 2022 22:23:44 GMT

proc format;
    value msrpf 0-25000='0-25K' 25000<-50000='25K-50K' 50000<-high='>50K';
run;

proc print data=sashelp.cars(obs=15);
    var make model msrp;
    format msrp msrpf.;
run;

Re: How to Change Continuous Variable to Discrete

SteveDenham — Mon, 05 Dec 2022 15:30:34 GMT

Why do you want to discretize a continuous variable, other than to throw away valuable information? See Regression Modeling Strategies, By Frank Harrell for reasons to avoid doing this.

SteveDenham

Re: How to Change Continuous Variable to Discrete

RosieSAS — Mon, 05 Dec 2022 20:39:32 GMT

Just want to add a note that, FORMAT only changes how MSRP looks, not the real values of MSRP. So MSRP is still a numeric variable, not a discrete or categorical variable.