How do I pull max of multiple columns in SAS?

[kyle234]

I want to loop through all numerical variables and find the max. I would like the results below. Thank you!

gpa     no of cars

3         1

4         1

5          2

Results I want

gpa         no of cars

5              2

[PaigeMiller]

This is not a loop. It is PROC SUMMARY or PROC MEANS.

proc means data=have max;
    var gpa no_of_cars;
run;

[FreelanceReinh]

For even greater simplicity, you can omit the VAR statement in Paige Miller's PROC MEANS step, as the procedure will then analyze all numeric variables in the input dataset.

[PaigeMiller]

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@FreelanceReinh wrote:

For even greater simplicity, you can omit the VAR statement in Paige Miller's PROC MEANS step, as the procedure will then analyze all numeric variables in the input dataset.

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Which may or may not be a good thing to do, if there are hundreds of variables and you only want the max of two of the variables, the VAR statement should be used.

[BrianB4233]

Paige's example will work just fine. Here's a couple more (I added a couple of records on my own):

data have;
input gpa cars;
datalines;
17 4
3 1
7 3
4 1
18 1
5 2
;
run;

** Long and unnecessarily convoluted;
data want1;
set have end=lastrow;

retain gpa_max cars_max; 

if _N_ = 1 then do; /* if 1st record in HAVE ... */
 gpa_max = gpa; /* set GPA_MAX and CARS_MAX to values of GPA & CARS */
 cars_max = cars;
end;

/* if it's not the 1st record .... */
else do;
	if gpa > gpa_max then gpa_max = gpa;
	if cars > cars_max then cars_max = cars;
end;

if lastrow; /* Output if last record in file */

keep gpa_max cars_max;
run;

** Simpler and get the same result;
proc sql;
create table want2 as select
max(gpa) as gpa_max,
max(cars) as cars_max
from have
;
quit;