The missing statement is missing!  Your code works unchanged following data temp1 ;   missing A B C D E F G ;   infile datalines missover dlm = '09'x ;   input Obs C03 C06 C08 C05 C07 C02 C01 C04 temp1 temp2 r1 r2 ;   drop obs r1 r2 ; datalines ; 1 1 1589691 1385 6 4 74 98.564 5.247 0.8 0.2 60 103 2 1 831697 445 4 5 91 112.11 6.0543 0.2 0.7 103 103 3 C 438287 170 15 5 67 142.051 12.3561 0.1 0.5 12 57 4 4 513424 151 3 4 26 145.345 12.1783 0.1 0.3 12 67 5 1 632787 549 3 3 71 110.274 7.9074 0.2 0.8 103 2 6 1 784585 138 17 3 36 96.169 12.9356 0.5 0.4 57 57 7 0 5220856 611 7 5 53 120.258 8.8338 0.7 0.8 103 2 8 E 333766 456 5 4 60 134.078 5.308 0.1 0.2 12 103 9 C 432310 525 5 3 61 129.407 7.8711 0.1 0.2 12 103 10 C 8509368 2390 13 6 56 141.523 3.8929 0.1 0.5 12 57 ; Result Obs C03 C06 C08 C05 C07 C02 C01 C04 temp1 temp2 r1 r2 1 1 1589691 1385 6 4 74 98.564 5.2470 0.8 0.2 60 103 2 1 831697 445 4 5 91 112.110 6.0543 0.2 0.7 103 103 3 C 438287 170 15 5 67 142.051 12.3561 0.1 0.5 12 57 4 4 513424 151 3 4 26 145.345 12.1783 0.1 0.3 12 67 5 1 632787 549 3 3 71 110.274 7.9074 0.2 0.8 103 60 6 1 784585 138 17 3 36 96.169 12.9356 0.5 0.4 57 39 7 0 5220856 611 7 5 53 120.258 8.8338 0.7 0.8 103 60 8 E 333766 456 5 4 60 134.078 5.3080 0.1 0.2 12 103 9 C 432310 525 5 3 61 129.407 7.8711 0.1 0.2 12 103 10 C 8509368 2390 13 6 56 141.523 3.8929 0.1 0.5 12 57 Richard ... View more

Data want ;      Set have ;      outcome = max (anxiety, stress, multiple, etc1, etc2, etc3, etc4) ; Run ; Richard ... View more

SAS does not "forget" the trailing blanks.  However, when making a comparison between two character variables as a convenience it in effect trims (removes trailing blanks) for the purpose of making the comparison and only during the comparison. The alternative would be that you would have to extend the shorter variable with blanks in order to compare two variables of unequal length.  Maybe this is what SAS is doing "under the covers" anyway.  The effect is the same. This is a convention that has been adopted by SAS and I think they made the right choice.  It would be tedious to have to check the length of each variable before making a comparison, in case the comparison would fail each time the lengths were different. An alternate design would have used byte(0) ( '00'x ) for padding in which case the number of trailing blanks would not change if the value is copied into a variable with longer length, and would be significant in comparisons.  It's one of the early design decisions that become fundamental to the language. You can see that SAS retains trailing blanks data test ;      length var $ 12 ;      var = 'ABC' ;      var = var || 'XYZ' ;      put var= ; run ; Because var is defined with length 12 the value ABC is padded with 9 blanks.  It then has no space left to add on the XYZ. Macro variables, on the other hand, do not have fixed length and they can be extended, so you get a different result: %Let var = %Str(ABC         ) ; %Let var = &var.XYZ ; %Put &var ; Richard ... View more

Here is a one step solution data have;   Infile cards missover ;   input id x $ @ ;   output ;   input @'or' x ;   If not missing(x) then output ;   cards; 1  a 2  b 3  a or b ; run ; Richard ... View more

I do not think there is a substitute for the experience your interviewer is looking for.  This leads to a chicken and egg situation - you can't get a job without the experience and you can't get the experience without the job.  Eventually the supply of available experienced job seekers will run out and recruiters will have to look for people with the potential to work in these areas, so being able to demonstrate the potential is the key.  You will need to show if possible you have good experience in other industries, that you can demonstrate versatility, and you can demonstrate you are a quick learner. You do not say what type of job you were being interviewed for.  If you have marketing campaign experience and the job requires that ability that should be transferrable.  If you have done propensity modelling and the job requires creating application scorecards, that should be a good fit.  If you have commercial collections experience and the job requires monitoring collections performance you probably know enough to start.  Employers feel safer picking people who have worked in their industry, even if the task is quite generic.  Keep trying - eventually someone will need to fill a vacancy so urgently that previous experience becomes less of an issue. Richard ... View more

Is your native OS 64 bit?  From the doco I saw I think it may be possible to create a 64bit Oracle VirtualBox on a 32bit system, but it involves delving into the BIOS. Richard ... View more

You did remember to remove      datarow = 3; didn't you? Richard ... View more

It would be nice if the Filename statement supported the FIRSTOBS= option.  Then you would not need to data _null_ step. (No offense!) Richard ... View more

I would do it in Excel or as a tab separated text file, like this, assuming you have more than one Department. Department Year Month Target Widgets 2013 7 0.4 Widgets 2013 8 0.8 Widgets 2013 9 1.2 Widgets 2013 10 1.6 Widgets 2013 11 2 Widgets 2014 1 2.8 Widgets 2014 2 3.2 Widgets 2014 3 3.6 Widgets 2014 4 4 Widgets 2014 5 4.4 Widgets 2014 6 4.8 Wotsits 2013 7 etc Note that I have rolled Dec/Jan into month 1 of 2014 assuming Dec/Jan means a single report covering both December and January.  If not, provide a separate target row for each month. You can then merge with your existing data (simplify if you do not need to merge Dec/Jan): Proc SQL ;      Create table want as           Select     hav.*                ,        Case                               When Month(Date) = 12 then mdy(1,1, Year(Date)+1)                               else date                          end          as ReptDate                ,         tgt.Target           From   have         hav                ,     Targets     tgt           Where     tgt.Department = hav.Department                and    tgt.Year = Year(calculated ReptDate)                and    tgt.Month = Month(calculated ReptDate)                ; Quit ; [untested code - you may need to create ReptDate in a separate query] Richard ... View more