What does OF mean?; referring to the OF operator.

[PhilC]

Once I asked myself this, I just can't get the question out of my head.  The OF symbol (syntax) is not motivated by the English preposition "of", is it?

SAS Help Center: The OF Operator with Functions and Variable Lists

[Tom]

Are you trying to get into the minds of the SAS development team?

Makes sense to me.  MAX(of var1-var10) means "take the max of var1 thru var10".

[PhilC]

---

@Tom wrote:

  MAX(of var1-var10) means "take the max of var1 thru var10".

---

yeah, but then there is 

CALL MISSING(of var1-var10);

[jimbarbour]

---

@PhilC wrote:

---

CALL MISSING(of var1-var10);

---

This is sort of like saying:

Dear SAS, of this list of variables, var1 through var10, please set them to missing.

I would agree that 

MAX(of Var1 - Var10);

is easier to "translate" into English, but I think the paradigm still holds even for MISSING.

The general rule for "translating" into English would be:

of these variables (a list of vars), do this (perform the specified function)

In the case of MISSING:

Of these variables, Var1 - Var10, set them to missing.

In short:  "of these, do this".

I think this is a reasonable way of understanding the syntax.  

Jim

[PhilC]

Ok I get it, thanks for your submissions.  Sadly I'm too unsatisfied to press "Accept as Solution", so I'm passing out likes.  

[Tom]

---

@PhilC wrote:

Ok I get it, thanks for your submissions.  Sadly I'm too unsatisfied to press "Accept as Solution", so I'm passing out likes.  

---

That because your original goal is a fool's errand .

Software designers create syntax that re-use normal words.  But the meaning of the syntax is what the computer language supports, not the normal conversational meaning of that word.

[PhilC]

It's a good point to bring up about the re-using of pre-existing reserved words.  That dawned on me when a day after the post. 

---

"Who's the more foolish, the fool or the fool who follows him?" - George Lucas

[jimbarbour]

The Cambridge Dictionary lists one of the uses of "of" as "relating to".  In this sense, the developers used the word well.  They used "of" to relate a function to a grouping of variables. 

However, to @Tom's point, if we discuss this long enough, the Dictionary of Internet Slang's definition of "of" may soon apply to all of us. 😉

What does "of" mean in slang?

The Meaning of OF:
OF means "Old Fart" 

[PhilC]

---

@Tom wrote:

Are you trying to get into the minds of the SAS development team?

ha ha, yes I am.

[PaigeMiller]

Are you referring to using OF in many functions such as 

y=mean(of x1-x5);

???

If so, then this indicates that the function (in this case the MEAN function) is to use a variable list x1-x5.

Or are you asking about other uses? If so, please specify where in SAS you would use this OF

[WarrenKuhfeld]

At one time, there was no OF operator. In those bad-old-days, the statement

mean = mean(x1-x100);

computed the mean of x1 minus x100, which was not what anyone would ever likely want.
So SAS added OF to take the mean (or whatever function) *of* a list, suppressing the normal subtraction. More generally, OF can be used with any list. So, yes, the english word "of" makes sense: function of a list of variables.