Selection Across Row

[twildone]

Hi....I want to be able to select the last value across each row for each row. Is it possible to do the selection without having to transpose the dataset. Thanks.

Have:

Column1	Column2	Column3	Column4	Column5
201011	201112	201213
201213	201314
201516
201112	201213	201314	201415	201516

Want:

Column

201213

201314

201516

201516

[Reeza]

What's the data type? If it's date or character AND as in example is increasing, use the MAX() function. 

[Astounding]

You should be able to use arrays.  It's easier to read if you adjust the code for your variables being numeric or character (whichever they happen to be), but it can be done without necessarily knowing:

data want;

set have;

array cols {5} column1-column5;

do _n_=1 to 5;

   if not missing(cols{_n_}) then column = cols{_n_};

end;

run;

[Ksharp · Accepted solution]

data have;
infile cards expandtabs truncover;
input Column1	Column2	Column3	Column4	Column5;
cards;
201011	201112	201213	 	 
201213	201314	 	 	 
201516	 	 	 	 
201112	201213	201314	201415	201516
;
run;
data want;
 set have;
 want=coalesce(of Column5-Column1);
run;