When I run the last piece of code I get an error in the set data line. Should that be something else 55 data want; 56 set data (firstobs=2); ERROR: File WORK.DATA.DATA does not exist. SYMBOLGEN: Macro variable RENAMES resolves to a=dept 57 rename &renames; 58 run; WARNING: The variable a in the DROP, KEEP, or RENAME list has never been referenced. NOTE: The SAS System stopped processing this step because of errors. WARNING: The data set WORK.WANT may be incomplete. When this step was stopped there were 0 observations and 0 variables. WARNING: Data set WORK.WANT was not replaced because this step was stopped. NOTE: DATA statement used (Total process time): ... View more

Lets try this a different way.  I attempted to replicate the issue in a sample dataset Data have; infile cards truncover; input email $20. first $30. last $30. age $3. completion_date $40.; cards; joesmith@email.com charles smith 1/11/2016 01:50 PM America/New York ryna@email.com dennis jones 22 1/1/2016 01:50 PM America/Washington ; run; Is there a way to bring in the data and account for the variations in the character size without having to specify the length (ie email $20. what if I get a longer email address)  I inserted truncover to account for missing data.  As for the date the character size may vary.  is there a way to account for this without having to estimate the character size ... View more

Thanks for the response. For your routine in proc report "define month_ / "" across is there a way to show returns as a percentage of sales? In this case the proc report would show sales as a numeric and returns as a percentage8.3 Also in your response were you saying that its best to use a long version of date yymmd7 as opposed to the monyy5 ... View more

@ballardw wrote: Really need to show what you expect for output. Reread your 1 through 4 and consider that we do not know what you actually want to do, there is no "report" included so references to that make no sense. And since we are in APRIL 2021 all of those dates you show are 12 to 16 months ago. How is "month elapse" to be used, or "month_sort" no example actually provided.   Why is the proc transpose included at all?   Hint: learn to use date values instead of (hard to work with text) like "APR20". Example:   data have; length section $25 month_ $5 tot_cnt 3 month_sort 8; input section -- month_sort; dateval= input('01'||month_,date7.); format dateval MONyy.; datalines; central JAN20 10 3 central JAN20 22 3 central FEB20 30 2 central FEB20 88 2 central MAR20 30 1 central MAR20 88 1 central APR20 30 0 central APR20 88 0 ; run;     Second hint: make sure everyone can tell if the 20 is a day of the month or a year. Not at all obvious. Below is an example using a specific date to select 2 dates less than 2 months prior. proc print data=have; where intck('month',dateval,'01APR2020'd) lt 2; run; Once you have an actual date then incrementing is easy with a function like like INTNX to set boundaries or INTCK to investigate intervals.   Hint 3: Post code or log entries into text boxes opened on the forum with the </> icon to maintain formatting and prevent odd characters from creeping into code when the forum software reformats text. I should have posted the proc transpose results.  Here it is section _NAME_ 20-Jan 20-Feb 20-Mar 20-Apr central tot_cnt 22 88 88 88                         Desired result is to dynamically name the header(dates) with a character varaible based on the month   descending order. Like this                   section _NAME_ Month3 Month2 Month1 Month0 central tot_cnt 22 88 88 88 Not quite sure of your statement regarding formatting <>  Are you saying begin the code with <> and end it with </>  as in html??     ... View more