SAS community is holding my post for approval. not sure what that's about. anyway, i actually, got it working. i found my mistakes in the reply post i sent you earlier but hasn't been released. thanks! ... View more

Hi @A_Kh @LinusH  @Ksharp  @SASKiwi    Thanks for you all's help. I've probably made things more complicated by the fact that i'm so new to SAS, to say there's a gap in my knowledge at this point is an understatement. There are so many ways this could probably be handled so let me start with a different question based on the data below - can i get all obs's numerical values onto one line (obs) in that order? The orig vars can be replaced and made to simply be var1...var18 ( i won't need the sec or id)   data have; input sec $ id $ fr_m fr_f tot_; cards; 06 M 10 8 0 06 D 0 12 120 06 To 8 18 20 06 PT 3 7 9 06 FT 53 41 9 06 To 7 79 13 ; run; Want: I need this out on a single line, e.g. 10 8 0 0 12 120 8 18 20 3 7 9 53 41 9 7 79 13 so my text file would be data _null_; set have; file "outfile.txt"; put @1 "xxxx" @5 "yyy" @7 "zzz" @11 var1 @16 var2 @21 var3 @26 var4 @31 var5 @36 var 6 @41 var 7 @46 var 8 @51 var9 @56 var10 @61 var11 @66 var 12 @71 var 13 @76 var 14 @81 var 15 @86 var @91 var 16 @96 var 17 @101 var 18 run; Thanks for your patience and any help is appreciated. ... View more

Thanks for the responses so far. Let me explain this another way. The spreadsheet visual I included before is accurate of the data. It's a comprehensive table of obs that has been grouped by vehicle type. What i'm trying to add is  'for any grouping (car_type) i want it to have (car, van, suv), if van is missing, insert it' so ALL groupings have car, van, suv - in that order. If the var values are empty, that's fine i can handle that with missing option.   ... View more