Replacing null with previous values .

[MG18]

In a table 3 variables are there

Month	Emp_name	Salary
Jan	Aaaa	100
Jan	Bbbb	200
Jan		200
Jan		400
Jan	Dddd	400

How to replace missing Emp_name with the previous latest Emp_name? Means 4th and 5th record of Emp_Name should be replace with ‘bbbb’ ?

[ed_sas_member · Accepted solution]

Hi @MG18 

You can use the retain statement to create a temporary variable as follows:

data have;
	infile datalines dlm=" " dsd missover;
	input Month $ Emp_name $ Salary;
	datalines;
Jan Aaaa 100
Jan Bbbb 200
Jan  200
Jan  400
Jan Dddd 400
;
run;

data want;
	set have;
	retain _Emp_name;
	if not missing(Emp_name) then _Emp_name = Emp_name;
	else Emp_name = _Emp_name;
	drop _Emp_name;
run;