PROC MEANS autoname

[bkq32]

I'm running a variable fit_msr_shldr_wst_sml_b_r_f through PROC MEANS and want it to output the 25th and 75th percentiles as fit_msr_shldr_wst_sml_b_r_f_p25 (31 chars) and fit_msr_shldr_wst_sml_b_r_f_p75. Why is the name being truncated and coming out as fit_msr_shldr_wst_sml_b_r__p25 (30 chars)? I know it's not an ideal variable name, but any help would be appreciated.

data have;
input fit_msr_shldr_wst_sml_b_r_f;
cards;
4
9
9
8
2
4
;
run;


proc means data=have nway noprint;
var fit_msr_shldr_wst_sml_b_r_f;
output out=temp0 P25= P75= / autoname;
run;

[ed_sas_member]

Hi @bkq32
Unfortunately, the maximum possible length for variable names is set to 32 in SAS, whatever the VALIDVARNAME option you use.
Maybe you could define some rules / naming conventions and document them for your dataset so that you still have meaningful variables. Why don’t you set labels for example ?
Best,

[bkq32]

Hi @ed_sas_member , If I'm not mistaken, the new variable name I'm trying to make would only be 31 characters, so I'm confused as to why it's being truncated

[ed_sas_member]

Hi @bkq32 

As highlighted by @Astounding, SAS acts as if it has to put the largest keyword suffix while having less than 32 characters. To avoid this truncation, you can specify the desired name in the "keyword =" option and remove "autoname" (but you will loose the "flexibility" of the program)

proc means data=have nway noprint;
var fit_msr_shldr_wst_sml_b_r_f;
output out=temp0 P25=fit_msr_shldr_wst_sml_b_r_f_p25 P75=fit_msr_shldr_wst_sml_b_r_f_p75;
run;

Best,

[bkq32]

@ed_sas_member Thanks for letting me know how to work around that. I'll give that a shot

[Astounding · Accepted solution]

Just an educated guess that SAS needs to confirm...

When the software sees AUTONAME, it doesn't try to parse your code to see which statistics you want. Instead it presumes you might want to add the longest possible suffix (_range) and defines the prefix accordingly. The advantage: if you run AUTONAME twice with different statistics each time, you get the same prefix both times.

[bkq32]

@Astounding That makes sense - thank you!