How to use retain and list the columns from another table

[aalluru]

I want to retain column names in the alphabetical order. I already have another table which has a single column consisting of these names in alphabetical order. Can I somehow incorporate this into the retain statement instead of typing all the column names manually?

[Kurt_Bremser]

proc sql noprint;
select name into :names separated by " "
from dictionary.columns
where libname = "LIBNAME" and memname = "DSNAME"
order by name;
quit;

data want;
retain &names.;
set libname.dsname;
run;

[FreelanceReinh]

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@aalluru wrote:

I already have another table which has a single column consisting of these names in alphabetical order. Can I somehow incorporate this into the retain statement instead of typing all the column names manually?

---

Yes, in Kurt_Bremser's code replace

dictionary.columns
where libname = "LIBNAME" and memname = "DSNAME"

with the name of that other table and replace "name" with the name of its single column.

Alternatively, you could use CALL SYMPUTX in a data step to write the variable names from that table (concatenated with the CATX function) into macro variable names.

[aalluru]

I'm getting an error for each column saying:

ERROR: Alphabetic prefixes for enumerated variables (<column name>) are different.

[FreelanceReinh · Accepted solution]

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@aalluru wrote:

I'm getting an error for each column saying:

ERROR: Alphabetic prefixes for enumerated variables (<column name>) are different.

---

This is how SAS punishes people who insist on using non-standard variable names. ;-)

The NLITERAL function should resolve the issue, though:

select nliteral(name) into :names separated by " "

[aalluru]

haha that worked, thank you so much!