If.Variable and Infile Statement

[aweaver]

Is it possible to use a first.variable statement and an infile?  I am tryin to sum up the album cost for each genre without using two data steps, currently the log says genre is unintialized.  Please help.

[PeterClemmensen]

To use a first.Variable statement you have to have a by statement in your code?

[Kurt_Bremser · Accepted solution]

First. and last. are only available with a by statement. Variables in the by statement must be in the input dataset.

So the answer to your question is no.

Read the raw data into a dataset, then you can use by processing.

[ballardw]

Depending on what you actually want for your final output one of the report procedures such as Proc Report or Tabulate might be more in line. These both support creating group totals based and often do not require a separate sort step.