Data Step behaviour

[rmlmrmlm]

Hello.

Imagine this example data set:

Var_Parent     Var_Child

-------------------------------

Car                  Ford

Car                  Fiat

Car                  Chevrolet

Animal             Cat

Animal             Cow

Animal             Pig

Country           Portugal

Country           UK

Country           USA

I want to copy this data set to a new one, to stay like this (literally).

As you can see, I want to OUTPUT "Begin of " every time Var_Parent changes.

Var

-------------------

Begin of Car

Ford

Fiat

Chevrolet

End of Car

Begin of Animal

Cat

Cow

Pig

End of Animal

Begin of Country

Portugal

UK

USA

End of Country

Can someone help me, please?

Thank you!

[mkeintz · Accepted solution]

data want (keep=text);

  set have;

  by var_parent notsorted;

  length text $24;

  if first.var_parent then do;

     text=catx(' ','Begin of',var_parent);

     output;

  end;

  text=var_child;

  output;

run;

if last.var_parent then do;

   text=catx(' ','End of',var_parent);

   output;

end;

run;

edit:  forgot my notes:

Notes:

1. The BY statement generate two dummy vars, first.var_parent and last.var_parent, indicating whether the record in hand is the first or last of a by-group.
2. The "notsorted" option tells SAS to expect the data to be grouped by var_parent, but not neccessarily in ascending order

[Reeza]

You want this as a data set or text file?

[rmlmrmlm]

@Reeza, yes as a data set. 

@mkeintz reply was perfect.

Thank you all!