how to tell column numeric or not?!

[hellohere]

Any function to tell a column at a dataset is numeric or not?!

Reading in files, but some columns are numbers but are readin as char.

So need a macro take dataset name and column name 1) tells numeric or not 2) if not, simple to 

change the data format. 

Thanks,

[PaigeMiller]

PROC CONTENTS will tell you (and there are other ways as well)

proc contents data=sashelp.class;
run;

So need a macro take dataset name and column name 1) tells numeric or not 2) if not, simple to 

change the data format. 

This is not a "format" issue, it is a variable type issue. In general, if the column is not numeric, you can't convert it to numeric unless it contains only digits (and perhaps a single decimal point and perhaps a single minus sign at the start of the text string). You can't convert these two character variables to numeric. So what do you really want here?

[ballardw]

One way to query specific data set properties:

proc sql;
   select name, type 
   from dictionary.columns
   where libname='SASHELP' and memname='CLASS' 
      and upcase(name)='SEX'
   ;
quit;

Libname and memname (dataset/view /etc ) are stored in uppercase. If you have more than datasets in your libarary you may need to add " and memtype='DATA' ".

The names of the variables may not be of consistent case so address that with one of the case functions.

If you have a list of variables to check then use something like: " upcase(name) in ('VAR1' 'VARNAME2' 'OTHERVARNAME')".

Or skip the name entirely essentially duplicating Proc Contents output...

Or look at the documentation of the VARTYPE function as an alternate.

[Reeza]

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@hellohere wrote:

Reading in files, but some columns are numbers but are readin as char.

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If you can fix it while you read in the data that's preferable than fixing after the fact. In the odd case you read in a variable as numeric instead of character you would lose information. If all files are the same layout using a data step to read rather than proc import will help to standardize the read in and fix it. 

[Tom · Accepted solution]

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@hellohere wrote:

Any function to tell a column at a dataset is numeric or not?!

Reading in files, but some columns are numbers but are readin as char.

So need a macro take dataset name and column name 1) tells numeric or not 2) if not, simple to 

change the data format. 

Thanks,

---

Such programs have been written.  Here is one https://github.com/sasutils/macros/blob/master/varexist.sas

So you could use that macro to find the TYPE of the vairable.

%put AGE in SASHELP.CLASS is %varexist(sashelp.class,age,type);

But you might want to take a step back and find out why the variable was not created properly.  Where did the dataset in question come from?  How did it get into SAS? 

[hellohere]

Thanks all, The macro should work out well.