assigning unique IDs

[stateworker]

Hi. I have a dataset with about 3,000 records. I need to assign a unique ID to these records but I don't want it to just be 1, 2, 3 or A, B, C. I need it to be something that won't be able to be de-coded. Is there a way to create a list of random numbers or alpha-numerics that I could then add as a variable to my dataset? My dataset has names, dates-of-birth, race and sex.

Thanks so much.

[sbb]

Review the SAS DOC and Data Step Language Elements, focusing on the SAS functions for some ideas to use with generating random numer values and look to convert the value to a character string.

Scott Barry
SBBWorks, Inc.

[stateworker]

Thanks.

[GertNissen]

data uniqid;
input x y $;
uniqid=md5(cats(x,y));
datalines;
1 A
2 B
3 C
4 D
5 E
;run;