I think it is important to understand that there is no possible way that we can understand every limitation imposed upon the OP.  I think we should provide as many solutions as possible so that the OP can test each scenario on their particular system in their particular workplace for their particular input dataset.  's solution is easily best combination of flexibility and efficiency - however I have worked in teams where the Manager refused to allow us to use HASH OBJECTS because he didn't understand them, a similar restriction was applied to SQL by another manager I worked for, therefore CALL EXECUTE, although less efficient in many instances - it can be slightly more efficient with smaller datasets - allowed me to work around these issues.  Furthermore, I have had a few issues with HASH OBJECTS and memory that I couldn't work around or that made the process less efficient. It is now up to the OP to decide what method suits their particular circumstances.  Hopefully his request allows him to use a simple datastep as you have suggested, but in case it isn't, he has plenty to work with and test from the above contributors. ... View more

@Jaap, I am not sure what you are querying.  If you run the previously attached code you will see the following in the log: 14         GOPTIONS ACCESSIBLE; 15         DATA WANT; 16         SET HAVE END=EOF; 17         BY CLASS; 18         IF FIRST.CLASS; 19         CALL EXECUTE(COMPBL("DATA CLASS_" || COMPRESS(CLASS) || "; 20                              SET HAVE (WHERE = (CLASS =" || CLASS || ")); 21         RUN;")); 22         RUN; NOTE: Numeric values have been converted to character values at the places given by:       (Line):(Column).       19:48   20:55   NOTE: There were 50 observations read from the data set WORK.HAVE. NOTE: The data set WORK.WANT has 10 observations and 501 variables. NOTE: DATA statement used (Total process time):       real time           0.00 seconds       cpu time            0.00 seconds       NOTE: CALL EXECUTE generated line. 1         + DATA CLASS_1;    SET HAVE (WHERE = (CLASS = 1));        RUN; NOTE: There were 5 observations read from the data set WORK.HAVE.       WHERE class="1"; NOTE: The data set WORK.CLASS_1 has 5 observations and 501 variables. NOTE: DATA statement used (Total process time):       real time           0.00 seconds       cpu time            0.00 seconds 2         + DATA CLASS_2;    SET HAVE (WHERE = (CLASS = 2));        RUN; NOTE: There were 5 observations read from the data set WORK.HAVE.       WHERE class="2"; NOTE: The data set WORK.CLASS_2 has 5 observations and 501 variables. This suggests that each datastep created via CALL EXECUTE is executed following the completion of the _NULL_ datastep, which is what this article is pointing out. ... View more

You could also use: DATA _NULL_;   SET HAVE END=EOF;   BY CLASS;   IF FIRST.CLASS;   CALL EXECUTE(COMPBL("DATA CLASS_" || COMPRESS(CLASS) || ";                      SET HAVE (WHERE = (CLASS =" || CLASS || "));   RUN;")); RUN; ... View more

Is this what you are looking to do? DATA HAVE; INFILE DATALINES DLM=","; INPUT CHILD $ PARENT $ LEVEL; DATALINES; XXX,YYY,1 XXX,ZZZ,2 YYY,XXX,2 ZZZ,YYY,3 ; RUN; PROC TRANSPOSE DATA=HAVE OUT=WANT PREFIX=PARENT; ID LEVEL; BY CHILD; VAR PARENT; RUN; ... View more

Hi Ian, You  might find the following link interesting. SAS/IML(R) 9.22 User's Guide Specifically the section referring to the following code. /* Create RANK-like functionality for character matrices */ start rankc(x);   s = unique(x); /* the unique function returns a sorted list */   idx = j(nrow(x), ncol(x));   ctr = 1; /* there can be duplicate values in x */   do i = 1 to ncol(s); /* for each unique value */   t = loc(x = s);   nDups = ncol(t);   idx = ctr : ctr+nDups-1;   ctr = ctr + nDups;   end;   return (idx); finish; /* call the RANKC module */ x = {every good boy does fine and good and well every day}; rc = rankc(x); print rc[colnam=x]; /* Notice that ranking is in ASCII order, in which capital   letters precede lower case letters. To get case-insensitive   behavior, transform the matrix before comparison */ x = {"a" "b" "X" "Y" }; asciiOrder = rankc(x); alphaOrder = rankc(upcase(x)); print x, asciiOrder, alphaOrder; ... View more

I don't understand how you are defining your matrix.  You are specifying the creation of a numeric matrix, but you don't have any numeric variables. ... View more

You probably should provide a sample that is representative of the data you will be working with. It appears to work for me without issue for 200 characters. ... View more

How about this? DATA STUFF;   SET HAVE;   A = 0; B = 0; C = 0; D = 0; E = 0; F = 0; G = 0; H = 0; M = 0;   ARRAY VARS A B C D E F G H M;   DO J = 1 TO DIM(VARS);   DO I = 1 TO LENGTH(COMPRESS(STRING));   IF VNAME(VARS{J}) = SCAN(STRING,I) THEN VARS{J} = VARS{J}+INDICATOR;   END;   END;   DROP I J; RUN; ... View more

DATA WANT; SET HAVE; IF _N_/2 = INT(_N_/2); RUN; ... View more