changing numeric to character

[uttara_96]

I have a code with a data set with a variable titled average with the average housing prices by month since 1975. These observations are in char format and need to be converted to numerics. The code is below:

data mortdata.housingproces; set mortdata.house_price;

AVG = input(average, Best5.);

run;

This isn't working, and I'd like to know why. The output that I keep getting is just "." for all the rows.

Thank you for your help in advance!  

[Reeza]

BEST5 seems low for house prices, have you tried BEST12?

Post your log as well please.

[uttara_96]

I tried BEST12, but the output was the same.

[Reeza]

Post your code and log.

[ballardw · Accepted solution]

Does you text value have commas? Show some example values, what you are currently getting for results and what you expect.

[uttara_96]

My text values had commas in them, and I removed them right now. The results are now populating. Thank you so much for y'all's help!

[Reeza]

The informat represents the format your data was in.

So it should have been something like:

input(average, comma12.);

[ShiroAmada]

data mortdata.housingproces; set mortdata.house_price;

AVG = average+0;

run;

[Reeza]

---

@ShiroAmada wrote:

data mortdata.housingproces; set mortdata.house_price;

AVG = average+0;

run;

---

Implicit conversion isn't a great idea in the long run. It will leave notes in the log and make it hard to distinguish actual errors, if they crop up later on.