Move a certain column to the end/beginning without knowing the rest of columns

[ayin]

Original dataset:

Type Class ... Total ... Category

1. Need to move the column 'Total' to the end without changing the order for the rest of columns.

The result looks like:

Type Class ... Category Total

2. Need to move the column 'Total' to the beginning without changing the order for the rest of columns.

Total Type Class ... Category

Requirements:

Hard-coding like

retain ColA ColB ... ColZ Total;

wouldn't work because we wouldn't know the names for the rest of the columns or how many columns there are (they are dynamic).

Thank you.

[Tom · Accepted solution]

Use the KEEP= and/or DROP= dataset options.

data one ;
  set have (drop=Total);
  set have ;
run;

data two;
  set have (keep=Total);
  set have ;
run;

[ayin]

That's super smart! Thank you.