how many i keep top 500 observations

[aarony]

i have a variable mktcapitalisation in a dataset

i sorted them and found 4886 observations

proc sort data=us3 out= us4;

  key mktcapitalisation/descending;

run;*/4886 obs;

how do i keep the top 500?

[Haikuo · Accepted solution]

data want;

   set us4 (obs=500);

run;

or

data want;

   set us4;

if  _n_>500 then stop;

run;

[jwillis]

What is your definition of top 500?.  You sorted the file.  Do you want the first 500 in each sort group?  Do you want the top 500 sort groups in terms of frequency or percentage of the total?      A proc freq can tell you which sorted values are more frequent than others.