Imported categorical variable with values from spss now displays as numeric but when converted to character I lose values

[mitris]

variable in spss is familygrossincome:

0='Unknown or not applicable'

1= 'Less than 20,000'

3= '20,000 to 39,999'

8='40,000 to 59,999'

12='60,000 to 79,999';

When imported, proc contents shows it is numeric. When I run proc freq it displays the levels as text i.e.

Unknown or not applicable

less than 20,000

etc

When I do where statement I have to use numeric value (0, 1, 3, 8 12). I can only tell these are the values by looking at spss I cannot find them in sas

If i make a character copy using familygrossCat= STRIP (PUT(familygrossincome, familygross.) then proc freq only displays 0,1 3, 8, 12)

I guess I have three questions.

1) How do create a categorical variable with the text values not the numbers?

2) If I do copy numbers, how do I get procedures to display the text values (e.g. less than 20,000) instead of numerical value?

3) What is the command to see what the numerical and character values are for a variable? I usually just look at the original spss file

Thank you!

[ballardw]

It has not been changed to character and attempts to modify it are likely going to misbehave. When you ran proc contents it should have shown you that the variable has a format associated with it, and likely to be the name of the variable. Which is why reference in Where or IF statements you need the 0, 1 etc.

If you want proc freq to show  the 1, 2, 3 values then add a line to the code like:

format familygrossCat best.;

Proc freq by default will use the currently assigned format for any of the variable values.

[mitris]

So I am not sure if this how best to approach it but this is what I was able to do:

proc format;

value familygross

0='Unknown or not applicable'

1= 'Less than 20,000'

3= '20,000 to 39,999'

8='40,000 to 59,999'

12='60,000 to 79,999';

run;

proc freq data=FA2013_7;

tables familygrossincome;

format familygrossincome familygross.;

run;

I still do not know how to display values that have been imported for the variable from spss.

Thank you for your response and help!