Thank you all for your input.   My preferred solution is   data want; merge have (keep=Subject Status Date)            have (keep=Subject rename=subject=newvar firstobs=2); if mod(_n_, 2) = 1; run;   Im not investigating the retain track..   Thank you ... View more

Thank you very much for helping me understand this issue. It was the floating point returned by %sysfunc(&ThisTime) that confused me. It could not be resolved by the %eval since this only handles integers.   %Let TheDate= %Sysevalf('29NOV2015'd); %Let ThisDay = TODAY(); %Put TheDate is &TheDate and ThisDay is &ThisDay and the diff is %EvAL((&TheDate) - %SYSFUNC(&ThisDay)); %Let TheTime = %Sysevalf('23:49:02't); %Let ThisTime = Time(); %Put TheTime is &TheTime and ThisTime is &ThisTime or %SYSFUNC(&ThisTime) and the diff is %SYSEVALF(%SYSEVALF(&TheTime) - %sysfunc(&ThisTime));   Thank you. ... View more