"ERROR: The AVG summary function requires a numeric argument." Why does it keep saying?

[Derdavos]

Hello!

I just have a minor error. I am sure this isn't a big deal, but I can't figure out the solution.

Here is my code:

proc sql;
create table test.class_analysis as
select sex, 
avg(age) as avg_age,
avg(height) as avg_height,
avg(weight) as avg_weight
from test.class
group by sex;
quit;

ERROR:  The AVG summary function requires a numeric argument.

So my question is, why does it keep saying error? It is in numeric values, I checked it. 😕

Thank you all fro answers. 🙂

[Kurt_Bremser · Accepted solution]

Since this works very well:

proc sql;
create table class_analysis as
select sex, 
avg(age) as avg_age,
avg(height) as avg_height,
avg(weight) as avg_weight
from sashelp.class
group by sex;
quit;

I suggest you do a proc contents on your dataset test.class and look at the output. At least one of the three analysis variables is of type character.

[andreas_lds]

Hardly possible to suggest anything useful without knowing the structure of test.class. The type of age, height and weight must be numeric. Maybe they are char and contain only numbers, but this violates the requirement of avg function.