PROC COMPARE for multiple data sets

[AndyK_]

I have 11 sets I'd like to merge into one very wide set, but I want to check for duplicate variables first.  For example, I know a number of the sets have a variable named "notes", so I'll need to rename them in each set (notes1, notes2, etc) so they don't get overwritten.  Each set has a common ID to merge on.

A PROC COMPARE on two of the sets confirms that "notes" is the only variable I need to worry about, but that just checks two sets.  It doesn't seem very efficient to run PROC COMPARE on each combination before the merge (or even 10 combinations off some sort of "master set"). PROC SQL isn't any prettier since it's 10 joins.

I can write a PROC COMPARE macro but that seems like overkill for what's essentially "find duplicate variables among these sets".  Does anyone have a systematic way of checking for duplicate variables when merging more than two sets?

[Reeza · Accepted solution]

Use the sashelp.vcolumn table instead and search for duplicate variable names for the tables of interest.

[AndyK_]

Terrific, thanks Reeza!  I ordered by name and can easily flag the dupes by hand.  It will be straightforward to automate for future use if we so desire.

Cheers,

Andy