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DMMD
Obsidian | Level 7

Could someone tell me the difference between Keep and Retain statements for SAS?

 

Thanks!

3 REPLIES 3
chrej5am
Quartz | Level 8

keeps refers to the variable beeing read or written in the dataset

 

retain stores the value of a variable between observations, it surpresses reseting of the variable

ballardw
Super User

In addition ot @chrej5am, Keep (and Drop) can be a data set option and used anywhere a dataset is used to restrict the variables used by a procedure. Retain is only valid in a data step.

Kurt_Bremser
Super User

Adding to what @chrej5am said, retain works reliably only with newly created variables. Variables that are already present in the input dataset(s) will be overwritten anytime a new observation is read.

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