Arrays

[Andrew6]

I am trying to use an array to clean my data, I have tried a few different things and nothing seems to really change what I am seeing, either in the data or the log.

     array optionschar {4}  $ gender
                       Marital_Status
                       Game_Attendance
                       games_attended;
	        do i = 1 to 10;
                       if optionschar{i} = "Male" then optionschar{i} = "M";
                       if optionschar{i} = "m" then optionschar{i} = "M";
                       if optionschar{i} = "Female" then optionschar{i} = "F";
                       if optionschar{i} = "Mar" then optionschar{i} = "M";
                       if optionschar{i} = "Married" then optionschar{i} = "M";
                       if optionschar{i} = "Single" then optionschar{i} = "S";
                       if optionschar{i} = "999" then optionschar{i} = ".";
                       if optionschar{i} = "Four" then optionschar{i} = "4";
        end;
        drop i; 
keep gender Marital_Status Game_Attendance games_attended;
run;        
        

[novinosrin · Accepted solution]

why are you looping 10 times when there are only 4 elements in your array. Shouldnt it be 

do i=1 to 4;

[PaigeMiller]

This doesn't even seem like a situation where arrays are useful.

You are performing different tasks on each variable in the array. Arrays are useful when you are performing the same task on each variable in the array.

[novinosrin]

use proc format and put function

[Andrew6]

Thank you both for the insight.

[Reeza]

Check multiple conditions at once using IN instead of the multiple IF statements:

if optionschar{i} = "Male" then optionschar{i} = "M";
if optionschar{i} = "m" then optionschar{i} = "M"

is the same as:

  if optionschar{i} in ("Male", 'm') then optionschar{i} = "M";

And another suggestion, make everything upper case in your comparison to avoid having to check for m, M, Male and male.  

if upcase(gender) in ('M', 'MALE') then gender='M';