Add dummy values to column

[SASPhile]

I have a dataset with 3000 records. One of the variables is blank for now,but we expect values in next refresh. How to add dummy values with no specific order and also the count of each value is not main concern.

for example variable_reqd  is blank in dataset "have" . But the variable need to have values  'a','b','c','d' in "want" for all 3000 rows.

[Kurt_Bremser]

data want;
set have;
array r{4} _temporary_ ('a','b','c','d');
variable_reqd = r{rand('integer',1,4)};
run;

[SASPhile]

There is an ERROR reported:

ERROR: Attempt to initialize element of numeric array r with
character constant 'a'.

[Kurt_Bremser]

My bad. Add a dollar sign to the array statement:

array r{4} $ _temporary_ ('a','b','c','d');

[SASPhile]

I tried that before reaching out. But still the below error is reported:

5553 array r{4} $ _temporary_ ('a','b','c','d');
5554 variable_reqd = r{rand('integer',1,4)};
5555 run;

ERROR: The first argument of the RAND function must be a
character string with a value of BERNOULLI, BETA,
BINOMIAL, CAUCHY, CHISQUARE, ERLANG, EXPONENTIAL, F,
GAMMA, GAUSSIAN, GEOMETRIC, HYPERGEOMETRIC, LOGNORMAL,
NEGB, NORMAL, POISSON, T, TABLE, TRIANGULAR, UNIFORM, or
WEIBULL.

[Reeza]

You're likely on a version of SAS that doesn't have the integer option for rand yet. What is your SAS version?

Rick Wicklin has a macro on his blog to replicate the function.

[SASPhile]

SAS version:9.04.01M3P062415

[Reeza]

array r{0:3} $ _temporary_ ('a','b','c','d');
variable_reqd = r(mod(_n_, 4);

If it doesn't matter where they go, just loop them.

[Kurt_Bremser]

Then you need to use the uniform distribution with a little additional work:

r{floor(rand('uniform')*4)+1}

Edit: changed normal to uniform

[ballardw]

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@Kurt_Bremser wrote:

Then you need to use the uniform distribution with a little additional work:

r{floor(rand('uniform')*4)+1}

Edit: changed normal to uniform

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or r[rand('table',.25,.25,.25,.25)} might work.

I don't remember which version introduced the rand('table').

[Reeza · Accepted solution]

rand table is old, 9.2 or 9.1 I think so would work here.