Hi from SAS page: SAS(R) 9.2 Language Reference: Concepts, Second Edition _N_ is initially set to 1. Each time the DATA step loops past the DATA statement, the variable _N_ increments by 1. The value of _N_ represents the number of times the DATA step has iterated. _ERROR_ is 0 by default but is set to 1 whenever an error is encountered, such as an input data error, a conversion error, or a math error, as in division by 0 or a floating point overflow. You can use the value of this variable to help locate errors in data records and to print an error message to the SAS log. Does this help? Anca
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