Sum with retain

[aguilar_john]

Hello everyone,

I have a problem which I have already solved more or less but was wondering if there might be a more elegant/efficient/faster solution to it. Hope somebody can help me.

DATA have;

     format month date9.;

     input month date9. id amount;

     datalines;

31DEC2020 1 10

31JAN2021  1 0

28FEB2021 1 5

31MAR2021 1 0

31DEC2020 2 0

31JAN2021 2 0

28FEB2021 2 5

31MAR2021 2 0

31DEC2020 3 20

31JAN2021 3 10

28FEB2021 3 0

31MAR2021 3 0

;

This is the table I have and I want to have a table which gives me for each month the overall sum of the amounts.

I tried it with this:

DATA want;

     SET have;

     BY id;

     RETAIN sum_all;

     sum_all = sum(amount, sum_all);

RUN;

But even though I group by the id the cum calculation does not restart at every new id.

I solved it by sorting the have table and the doing the calculation by introducing two IF conditions:

proc sort

     data=have

     out=have_sorted

     ;

     by

     id

     month

     ;

run;

    

DATA want2;

     SET have_sorted;

     BY id;

     RETAIN sum_all;

     IF first.id AND amount GT 0 THEN sum_all = 0;

     IF first.id AND amount EQ 0 THEN sum_all = amount;

     sum_all = sum(amount, sum_all);

RUN;

So the table want2 is how I want the end result to look like, for each id and month sum of amount so far.

Thank you for your help.

[Reeza]

You say you want the following but your results are not by month, but by ID. Which is the ultimate requirement? Assuming by month and ID:

---

@aguilar_john wrote:

This is the table I have and I want to have a table which gives me for each month the overall sum of the amounts.

---

Logically your code is almost as succinct as it can be (with the exception of using PROC EXPAND instead).

This is giving you a running total, did you want a running total or just a total per month?

If per month, PROC MEANS will be more efficient and can be used unsorted.

proc means data=have N SUM NWAY STACKODS;
class month ID;
format month yymmn6.;
var amount;
output out=want1 sum=total_amount n=Number_Obs;
ods output summary = want2;
run;

Your current code can be simplified as follows:

Retain is implicit with the SUM statement. Can your data have missing values? If so, you may want the sum function instead, so keeping the RETAIN + SUM() function is a better overall solution.

DATA want2;

     SET have_sorted;

     BY id;
     IF first.id THEN sum_all = 0;
     sum_all + amount;

RUN;

---

@aguilar_john wrote:

Hello everyone,

I have a problem which I have already solved more or less but was wondering if there might be a more elegant/efficient/faster solution to it. Hope somebody can help me.

DATA have;

     format month date9.;

     input month date9. id amount;

     datalines;

31DEC2020 1 10

31JAN2021  1 0

28FEB2021 1 5

31MAR2021 1 0

31DEC2020 2 0

31JAN2021 2 0

28FEB2021 2 5

31MAR2021 2 0

31DEC2020 3 20

31JAN2021 3 10

28FEB2021 3 0

31MAR2021 3 0

;

This is the table I have and I want to have a table which gives me for each month the overall sum of the amounts.

I tried it with this:

DATA want;

     SET have;

     BY id;

     RETAIN sum_all;

     sum_all = sum(amount, sum_all);

RUN;

But even though I group by the id the cum calculation does not restart at every new id.

I solved it by sorting the have table and the doing the calculation by introducing two IF conditions:

proc sort

     data=have

     out=have_sorted

     ;

     by

     id

     month

     ;

run;

    

RUN;

DATA want2;

     SET have_sorted;

     BY id;

     RETAIN sum_all;

     IF first.id AND amount GT 0 THEN sum_all = 0;

     IF first.id AND amount EQ 0 THEN sum_all = amount;

     sum_all = sum(amount, sum_all);

RUN;

So the table want2 is how I want the end result to look like, for each id and month sum of amount so far.

Thank you for your help.

---

[aguilar_john]

Thank you @Reeza for your quick respond. I indeed want the overall sum by id up to every month. Meaning for id=1 I want the sum_all=10 for DEC2020, for JAN2021 the amount=0 therefore my sum_all=10, for FEB2021 amount=5 and therefore my desired value is sum_all=15 (10+0+5).
So I always want the running total for each id.
Missing values are ok (I would manipulate the final dataset with a PROC STDIZE) but ideally it does not contain any missings.
Does that mean, that there is no other solution than to first sort the dataset and and use SUM and/or RETAIN?
There is no possibilty to do it in one step?

[Reeza]

You want a sum by ID only over all your months not by months. Use the PROC MEANS and remove the MONTH reference will also give you the totals.

[Kurt_Bremser · Accepted solution]

This is the simplest method:

data want;
set have;
by id;
if first.id
then sum_all = amount;
else sum_all + amount;
run;

The SUM statement (sum_all + amount) implies two things:

- missing values are considered as zero

- the variable to the left is automatically retained

[aguilar_john]

Thank you @Kurt_Bremser and @Reeza for your help!

The solution @Kurt_Bremser presented suits me the most.