Creating new variable at specific position

[nilu10686]

Hi All,

In an interview  of SAS, I have asked this question that In my dataset if I have 1000 variables so I want to create new variable @ 5th place or 50th place what method I should choose?

Any help appreciated.

[SASKiwi]

This is one way:

data want;
  retain Var1 Var2 Var3 Var4 NewVar;
  set have;
  NewVar = "NewVal";
run;

But IMHO it's a dumb question as the position of a variable has no effect on processing or analysis. The only time I reposition variables is to regroup them for browsing in a viewer. 

[PaigeMiller]

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@SASKiwi wrote:

But IMHO it's a dumb question as the position of a variable has no effect on processing or analysis. The only time I reposition variables is to regroup them for browsing in a viewer. 

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I give extra points for this answer, if I'm asking the question in an interview.  

[ChrisNZ]

For 50th place, I'd use

data WANT;
  if 0 then set HAVE (keep=VAR1--VAR49);
  length NEWVAR 8;
  if 0 then set HAVE (keep=VAR50--VAR99);
  .. normal SAS code ...
run;

but as @SASKiwi  said that's not an interesting question.

[Ksharp]

Same as ChrisNZ:

data have;
retain var1-var1000 1;
run;


data want;
if 0 then set have(keep=var1-var50);
length new_var $ 200 ;
set have;
new_var='NewVariable';
run;