Parts of the problem need to be thought through a little more. First, you are asking for more than the permutations.  When A takes on five values, you are not just asking for the 5! permutations.  You are actually asking for a total of 326 permutations: 5 choose 5 = 120 5 choose 4 = 120 5 choose 3 = 60 5 choose 2 = 20 5 choose 1 = 5 5 choose 0 = 1 Secondly, characteristics of the data could use a little more detail.  For example, could the domain for A overlap the domain for B?  Could any of the original values be missing? One approach would be just to focus on a single variable at a time.  Create a data set called A_permutations holding all the permutations for A, and similarly for each incoming variable.  In theory, if you don't run out of resources, it would be easy to combine them in PROC SQL. ... View more

thanks  alot ... View more

Haikuo, Let's add one more reduction  .. remove the need to initialize number_of_zeros: data want;   set have;   array x _numeric_;   do over x;     number_of_zeros=sum(number_of_zeros,x=0);   end; run; ... View more

Awesome guys, great to have so many different answers! Thanks for the additional information PG,  i am using Ksharp query but yours just gave me more depth for my analysis ... View more

data have; input var1 $; cards; a b c N q r a w e N ; run; data have; set have; if lag(var1) eq 'N' then count=0; count+1; run; Ksharp ... View more

hi ... one other idea if you know that the only variables that start with the string SCORE are in the list SCORE1, SCORE2, etc.,  you can also use ... total = sum (of score:); ... View more

hi ... if the goal is " ... simply remove TWO observations with equal Amount with a different sign, based just on amount and no other field ..." , I think this also works (using Fried Egg's data and idea similar to Ksharp's matching positive and negative values of _dllr) ... ... data have; input slug :$10. (gar h3432 fing up99 thisaw) (:12.) _dllr :comma9.2 dte :yymmdd10. note &:$15. ; cards; ABCD  1234  1  1202  671  020  1,234.56   2011-01-31  Fees Paid ABCD  1234  1  1202  671  020 -1,234.56   2011-01-31  Fees Paid ABCD  2345  1  1203  672  030  1,234.56   2011-01-31  Fees Paid ABCD  1234  1  1202  671  020  1,234.56   2011-01-31  Fees Paid WXYZ  2323  1  3212  672  020  6,543.89   2011-02-28  Allowance ERDS  1234  1  1202  671  020  1,234.56   2011-01-31  Fees Paid ERDS  1234  1  1202  671  020 -1,234.56   2011-01-31  Fees Paid QRDS  1234  1  1202  671  020  1,234.56   2011-01-31  Fees Paid QRDS  1234  1  1202  671  020  1,234.56   2011-01-31  Fees Paid ; run; proc sort data=have; by _dllr; run; * negative _dllr; data neg (index=(_dllr)); set have (keep=_dllr where=(_dllr lt 0)); _dllr = abs(_dllr); run; * positive _dllr ... check for matches among negative _dllr, if no match or out of matches ... output; data want; set have (where=(_dllr gt 0)); set neg key=_dllr; if _error_; _error_ = 0; run; ps  given all the various responses, I'm not sure if this is still the problem ...  if it involves looking for negative values plus matching on other variables, just change the index ... View more

That was it, I shud have thought of that, thanks for the help,, ... View more