creation of a numeric id value using two other variables

[jcooper3]

Hi there,

I'm trying to create a 4-5 digit ID number (final_id) using something that looks like the following data:

pat_id	state_id	county_idhave	county_idwant	final_id
1	45	3	003	45003
2	4	54	054	4054
3	3	798	798	3798
4	7	369	369	7369
5	98	651	651	98651
6	32	6	006	32006

I'm having two problems:

1. county_idwant needs to be three digits (state_id is to remain untouched). I need to either 1 zero or two zeroes to the front end to some of these values.

2. How do I merge state_id and county_idwant to get one final numeric value

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[ballardw · Accepted solution]

In a datastep:

final_id = state_id*1000 + county_idhave;

You can display county_Idhave using a Z3.0 format and not create a new variable for most purposes. If the only purpose was the create the final_id then not needed as above.

If this is USA data I would strongly recommend looking into FIPS for place identification codes.

[Kurt_Bremser]

Use 's method. This is also handy when creating a numeric combination of year and month:

wanted_var = year * 100 + month;

[jcooper3]

Thank you! This was much simpler than I thought it would. Thanks again.