Hi,   You are absolutely right, I think I posted my question more so out of frustration with the documentation examples I've run into rather than anything specifically related to select/when statements.  In terms of context, if I had a data set with the variable 'selected' in the examples (ie 'payclass') the code would run just fine.     *   Thanks all for replying!  I misunderstood how to use the documentation examples, but I get it now.  Sometimes too much information can cause just as much confusion and sas documentation wants to keep the references relevant to specific topics.   Thanks again! ... View more