SAS evaluates numeric values as being true or false. It considers zero and missing values to be false, and any other value to true. ... View more

What makes you think C cannot be a variable name? The rules for basic variable names are 1) must start with a letter or the underscore character, 2) following characters have to be letters, digits or the underscore character. Since C starts with a letter that is enough as there are no other characters.   Since C here is numeric, it might be the C involved with physics, or any value you might want to assign a constant to somewhere in the code, or something else obvious to the coder.   While I might question the coding style that uses variables such as "______" that is still a valid variable name (or data set name for that matter).   Sometimes the names are very descriptive but not obvious to anyone else. From a class I took comes the variable twopi Obvious name? Maybe you have the mind that would make the not-obvious-to-me connection that the value is something near "2 times Pi". ... View more

Maxim 1: Read the Documentation. And it is #1 for a VERY strong reason. ... View more

Suggest that when working with SAS and missing values that you do not think of "NULL" or "empty". Because you can have more than one missing value for numeric variables. Besides the default displayed dot (and that is YOUR option to change as needed) there are special missing values .A to .Z (dot and one letter) and the underscore: ._   So there is something stored to differentiate these values, they all return missing when tested but can display differently.   One use for the special missing values is to show a known reason for the value to be missing in variable. Example. The first data step creates set with one numeric value and some special missing. Then uses Proc Means to provide some requested statistics, note the number of NMISS, number of missing values. Then a custom format is created to provide a meaning for the special missing and proc print to demonstrate the use of that format with the example data set. data example; input x; datalines; 1 .A .B .C .D ; proc means data=example n nmiss sum; var x; run; Proc format; value mycustommiss .A = 'Not answered' .B = 'Broken instrument' .C = 'Cancelled request' .D = "Don't Know" ; proc print data=example; var x; format x mycustommiss.; run; And to head off questions about character variables and special missing, no. Reading values like .A into a character variable results in the character value of .A.     ... View more

... As do I (obviously).  Thanks @yabwon  ... View more

So you create a character variable named CC that is three bytes long. Then you used the PUT() function to convert the first two bytes of that variable into the 4 byte hexadecimal representation of those two bytes and used it to create a new variable CCHEX which will be 4 bytes long. Then you wrote the value of the first two bytes of CC to the log, again using the 4 character hex code.  The value written to the log will be prefixed with the name of the variable and an equal sign. You then re-wrote the same value into the variable CCHEX by repeating the same code as before. The next two statements just control how the dataset ONE is created.  The three byte variable CC with is not written.  But the four byte variable CCHEX is written but it will be called CC, not CCHEX. You then write the value of CC to the log, this time you write the whole value and do not convert it to hexadecimal codes.  Again the value is prefixed with the name of the variable and an equal sign. ... View more

WHERE is a statement that cannot be made conditional, so it is bad practice to put it after a subsetting IF. For better understanding, and more efficiency, the code should be like this: data lemon: set pf_lemon end=last; /* END= defines a boolean variable that will be true when the last observation is processed */ where sub_product = 'lemon'; /* WHERE tells the dataset engine to filter observations according to the condition */ tot_up + up; tot_down + down; /* Two SUM statements, causing an implicit RETAIN of the variables */ if last; /* All code after the subsetting IF is executed only when the condition is met */ /* This includes the implicit OUTPUT at the end of the data step iteration! */ ar = tot_up / tot_down; /* I moved this after the IF for efficiency */ run; Also note that I inserted blanks between operators and operands for better readability. ... View more

The $20 applies to both of the variables preceding it.   It's not exactly a format (which is usually intended to tell SAS how to display a value) - as a LENGTH statement, it tells SAS to store the data in mob and in DQ_6 as strings of length 20 characters.   ... View more

The first. and last. automatic variables generated via the BY statement are just indicators about the current observation related to the preceding and following observations.   When first.x=1, it means the current obs has a different value for x than the previous obs - otherwise first.x=0.. Similarly the last.x means the current value of x differs from the next obs  (i.e. SAS does a look-ahead for you).   Now, it is possible for a record to have both first.x=1 and last.x=1 (the current obs is a singleton) or first.x=0 and last.x=0 (current obs is in the middle of a stream of constant x values).   Now when you have BY a b c d. there will be multiple first. and multiple last. automatic variables.  The (slightly) non-intuitive behavior of these is that if, in the middle of a series of constant B values, you have a change in A, both first.A and first.B are set to 1, i.e. whenever a first. variable becomes 1, all the first.'s for variables to its right also become 1.   Same with a set of last. variables.   So let me revise my first statement: whenever first.x=1, it means that the current x differs from the preceding x or the current value of some earlier variable in a by list differs from its predecessor.   Editted addition: the above refers to use of by statement in a DATA step. ... View more

That cannot be the result of the code you posted.  That looks like the screen shot of someone browsing a dataset or perhaps some report.  Your code was just creating a macro variable.  But you only provided one statement.  You could not run this statement by itself. call symput("E_date", Feb21||" to "|| Jan22); You have to use that statement in a data step. So what is the rest of the data step? Do you actually have variables named FEB21 and JAN22?  From your photograph of the screen it looks like perhaps you didn't.   What did you want to put into the macro variable? ... View more

Hi:   To help you get a handle on using the MERGE statement with the IN= option, consider these examples. Common merge example with 2 datasets:     All possible output tables from merging 2 datasets: Code to make data and do merge:   data mtable1; infile datalines; input commonvar amount; return; datalines; 11 115 13 315 14 415 16 615 ; run; data mtable2; infile datalines; input commonvar name $ zip $; return; datalines; 10 Alicia 12345 11 Bryce 23456 12 Carolyn 34567 13 David 45678 14 Elsa 56789 15 Fern 67890 ; run; ** merge with all possible outputs; data both oneonly twoonly allofone alloftwo allobs; merge mtable1(in=inone) mtable2(in=intwo); by commonvar; if inone then do; output allofone; if inone and intwo then output both; else if inone and not intwo then output oneonly; end; if intwo then do; output alloftwo; if intwo and not inone then output twoonly; end; if inone or intwo then output allobs; run;   Results:   We cover the MERGE statement in detail in our Programming 2 course.   Cynthia ... View more

The indicated button has to be used for logs and textual data where it is necessary that the horizontal spacing is kept and no characters are changed. The "little running man" right next to it is meant for posting SAS code, as it additionally provides coloring similar to the SAS Enhanced Editor. ... View more

@HeatherNewton wrote: I have an ods html commands which I am not sure what it is doing it is like the following:   ods html file="&html_path/apple_&spmedate..xls"; proc print data=orange; label region = "Region" Product="Product" . . . format ... title... run; ods htmk close;     please could you help, thanks.       Do you know where &html_path and &spmedate are defined?   Lie to the software, as in naming a file with an extension like XLS when the code creates HTML is asking for all sorts of problems. Such as settings in later version of programs that will try to open XLS that may refuse with messages about the file contents do not match the expected file type. It was poor practice 10 or more years ago and the "reason" then doesn't exist any more with ODS EXCEL as an option. Use of html means no control over sheets, sheet names and such since HTML creates one single file. OR you have to go to a lot of work to make references between documents. ... View more

Why don't yo try? data T; d=put(1,monyy5.); e=put(1,monyy6.); f=put(1,monyy7.); run; You'll see that the length of 6 yields the same string as a length of 5 but preceded by a space.   ... View more