Having difficulty in merging categories

[almatruk]

Hello, 

I am trying to merge the "independent" and "something else" categories into one category. and when I used this code SAS exclude them from the analysis 

here is the code that I use 

"if (POLITIC in (2,4) ) then POLITIC = 'Independent and others';

run;

Any suggestions on how to merge those two categories into one?

[PaigeMiller]

---

@almatruk wrote:

Hello, 

I am trying to merge the "independent" and "something else" categories into one category. and when I used this code SAS exclude them from the analysis 

here is the code that I use 

"if (POLITIC in (2,4) ) then POLITIC = 'Independent and others';

run;

Any suggestions on how to merge those two categories into one?

---

If variable POLITIC in (2,4) it must be numeric, and you cannot then assign a character string to the variable POLITIC. SAS will not allow this. A better solution (assuming POLITIC is numeric) is the following:

proc format;
    value politicf 1='Martian' 2,4='Independent and others' 3='Vulcan' 5='Klingon';
run;

and then assign the format POLITICF to your variable in a procedure or in a data step

format politic politicf.;