Yes, PROC RANK has a "descending" option, but if that options is used, please note that records that are assigned to a common group in normal proc rank will not be guaranteed to stay together using the DESCENDING option, even when there are no ties.
Consider the following, using a modification of the height variable that guarantees no ties. You'll see that the group with the lowest height values has only one record in dataset ASC, but 2 records in DESC.
data class;
set sashelp.class (keep=name height);
height=height+_n_/100;
h2=height;
run;
proc rank data=class out=desc groups=10 descending;
var height;
run;
proc sort data=desc; by h2 name;run;
proc rank data=class out=asc groups=10 ;
var height;
run;
proc sort data=asc; by h2 name;run;
In other words, even though the group assignment in both cases range from 0 to 9 (or 9 to 0), assignment in one dataset is not always nine minus the assignment in the other. That is due to the fact that when groups must have differing sizes, the "extra" observations are apparently assigned, one by one, to the highest group id, then the second highest, third highest, etc.
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