sas programming

[pawandh]

data t;
input sno category$ 20.;
cards;
1 dairy floor eggs
2 floor milk
3 eggs bread
4 bread butter butter
;run;

i have this data set and i want distinct category (dairy,floor,eggs,milk,bread,butter).

I can do like this

data t1;
set t;
do i=1 to 3;
x=scan(category,i);
output;
end;
run;
proc print;run;

but here i dnt knw how many times i have to run the loop like 3 or 4 or 5 times.Any optimum way?

[Reeza]

Countw() will count number of words in a variable. Use that to create a variable that holds the number of iterations and use it in your do loop.

[stat_sas]

data t1;

set t;
do i=1 to countw(category);
x=scan(category,i);
output;
end;
run;

[PGStats]

Read the categories one by one until the end of each line:

data t;
infile datalines truncover;
input sno category :$20. @;
do until(missing(category));
    output;
    input category :$20. @;
    end;
datalines;
1 dairy floor eggs
2 floor milk
3 eggs bread
4 bread butter butter
;