Selecting certain number of observations into a table

[ammarhm]

Hi

A question please, i have a table containing a large number of observations, the table ( a case-control study) looks like this

Header 1	Header 2	Header 4
A	23	43
A	86T	80
A	87	77
A	78	776
A	48	5
D	23	22
D	77	1
D	16	3
D	99	4
C	65	5
C	555	6
C	7	7
C	09	7

what i want is to create another table that would only include the first three observations in each group in the first columns (Header 1), here is the output

Header 1	Header 2	Header 4
A	23	43
A	86T	80
A	48	5
D	23	22
D	77	1
D	16	3
C	65	5
C	555	6
C	7	7

Any help is appreciated

er of

[PGStats · Accepted solution]

A BY clause and a sum statement will do the trick :

data want;

set have; by Header1 notsorted;

if first.Header1 then order = 0;

order + 1;

if order <= 3;

drop order;

run;

PG

[ammarhm]

Thank you PGSats