Split One Observation into Many

[djbateman]

I have data that has a character field with many vial numbers per patient.  I want to split it out into an individual observation per subject for each vial.

For example, my data might look like this:

data subjects;

  length subject $3 vials $33;

  input subject $ vials $;

  cards;

S01 10509,10511,10512

S02 09631,09636,09639,09640,09641

S03 11978,12059

;

run;

I want to get it into this form:

Subject	Vial
S01	10509
S01	10511
S01	10512
S02	09631
S02	09636
S02	09639
S02	09340
S02	09641
S03	11978
S03	12059

[stat_sas · Accepted solution]

I would do this as

data want(drop=i vials);
set subjects;
i=1;
do while (scan(vials,i) ne "");
    vial=scan(vials,i);
    output;
    i+1;
  end;
run;

proc print data=want;
run;