Help deciphering this code

[ammarhm]

Hi all

A short question

I am working through a code that I am trying to understand and modify

here is the code

proc sql;

select distinct Var1,

compress(put(sum(Var2),comma7.) ||"/"|| put(sum(Var3),comma12.))

from x

group by Var1;

quit;

Could anyone please explain in simple wording what this code is doing, with focus on the compress() part?

Happy New Year to the SAS community

[gergely_batho · Accepted solution]

distinct is not needed here

We aggregate (take the sum) of Var2 and Var3. We convert both numbers to character strings with the commaW. format, then we concatenate those 2 character strings but also place a "/" between them.

We use the compress function to remove blanks from this concatenated string. For example converting a number to string with the comma12. format can result in a sting: "       123,4". We need to remove the extra blanks.

So the end result is: to summary numbers separated with a slash.

[Reeza]

Remove the compress to see what it's doing

Hint: Spaces, RTM

The code is taking the sum of var2, formatted to comma7 concatenating it to the sum of var3 formatted to comma12, separated by a slash.