Working with duplicates

[GreggB]

I divided a data set into 2 sets based on the value of dup_flag, which was created by sorting on STUDENT. All records in "undup" are unique.  All records in "alldup3" are duplicates

However, in some cases the duplicate can be eliminated, depending on the value of VAR2 in each record. If VAR2 is the same, as in the case of "sam", I can eliminate the dup. The values of VAR3 are irrelevant to this task.

data I have:

STUDENT     VAR2       VAR 3

sam                 1           trivial

sam                  1          trivial

bob                   1          trivial

bob                    2          trivial

data I want:

STUDENT     VAR2       VAR 3

sam                 1           trivial

bob                   1          trivial

bob                    2         trivial

data undup alldup3;
	set alldup2;
	if dup_flag='No' then output undup;
	else output alldup3;
run;

[Reeza · Accepted solution]

Use PROC SORT since you need your data sorted anyways - do you need both data sets or just the shown data?

proc sort data=have  nodupkey out=want1 ;
by descending student var2;
run;

[GreggB]

I don't need to do anything with the undup data set -- just the set that contains the dups.