SAS Proc and sorting options

[Paul_NYS]

Hi

I am using Proc Sort to sort a data set with a specific variable which is a alpha variable. I know the two standard sort options are ascending and descending (and don't see any others), but is there another option for custom sorting by the values in a variable/column?

The values I am trying to sort are (ascend/desc do not order correctly):

0

1 to 5

6 - 12

13 to 17

18 +

Paul

[art297 · Accepted solution]

Paul, I think you are looking for:

data have;

  input column1 $ &;

  cards;

0

1 to 5

6 - 12

13 to 17

18 +

;

proc sort data=have SORTSEQ=LINGUISTIC(NUMERIC_COLLATION=ON);

  by Column1;

run;

[Paul_NYS]

Thanks a lot again Art. That works fine.

Paul

[LinusH]

If you always want to sort this column according to numeric value, I think it would be wise to concert the column to numeric.

[Keith]

makes a good point.  If you just store the raw numeric data, you can create and apply a format with the values in your post.  If you are summarising the data using any of the usual SAS procs, they will automatically group by the formatted values.