Changing Observation Categories from 4 to 2

[sasnewbie85]

Hello there,

I recently restarted up my MPH after a long hiatus, and my SAS brain has completely atrophied!  I am working on what should be a very easy procedure, however, I can't seem to get the syntax right.

I have four categories of tobacco consumption, coded 1 2 3 and 4.  I want to have 2 categories, low and high, with the first two (1 and 2) being low and the second 2 (3 and 4) being high.  I need to do this to calculate measures of association between use and obesity.  I was able to do this easily with the two category variable of case or control. 

[novinosrin]

Are you by chance asking how to write the syntax for proc format?

[sasnewbie85]

I think so? again, this is all very new (again) to me.

[novinosrin]

hmm

is this what you are asking

  proc format;
     value frmt 1,2   = 'Low'
                3,4   = 'High';

  run;

  data test;
  do i=1 to 4;
  output;
  end;
  format i frmt.;
  run;

or

want=put(i,frmt.);

data test;
  do i=1 to 4;
  want=put(i,frmt.);
  output;
  end;
  run;

[sasnewbie85]

I will get back to you tomorrow morning when I am back at it...thank you so much for your help!

[sasnewbie85]

I'm actually not worried about the format, but the observations.  I want them grouped by level of tobacco use.  I have four categories now, and I want two, high and low.  

This below yields the tables and statistics I want but with four categories of tobacco use instead of 2, because that is how they are organized.

proc print data = work.hw2;
run;
proc freq data = hw2;
tables Tob * Case/ measures;
title;
run;

[novinosrin]

Without knowing the data, it's very difficult to imagine. It would help if you could post a sample of your data(a few records) alongside explaining your requirement i.e what you want to accomplish based on the sample. An output sample would make it convenient