how to refer to a previous value in longitudinal data set

[deerdi]

I am working with a longitudinal data; students received a degree at a certain time; I wonder how I can change all the values to 1 after degree attainment. For example, this is what my data looks like now:

Id     time     award

1       1           .

1        2          .

1       3           1

1       4           .

1        5           .

What I would like to do is to change the two missing values for time=5 and time=6 into 1. Any help is appreciated~!

[PGStats]

This way, assuming your data is sorted by id and time:

data have;

input Id     time     award;

datalines;

1       1           .

1        2          .

1       3           1

1       4           .

1        5           .

;

data want;

do until(last.id);

  set have; by id;

  gotIt = coalesce(gotIt, award);

  award = gotIt;

  output;

  end;

drop gotIt;

run;

proc print data=want noobs; run;

PG