@malena wrote: I need to double check the answers to the question of homelessness does not change at different dates.  In the below example I would like to see if the response variables in one record are the same across different dates. These answers supposedly do not change, but want to double check   ChildID        Homelessnow        Homelessrecently     Date 123             Yes                                no                       10/12/12 123             Yes                               Yes                       2/1/13 123             No                                 no                        4/1/13 456             Yes                              Yes                      11/12/12 456              No                                no                         4/2/13 456             Yes                              Yes                     6/1/13 An example of why coding text "yes" "no" is inefficient. If the values were 1 for 'Yes' and 0 for 'No' as numeric values then the RANGE function would tell if any of the values were different, since range is Largest value - Smallest value. If they are all the same then the Range is 0, and if any change then you would have a range of 1.   Here's an example of creating 1/0 coded variables and then using proc means to look at the summary. Note how to provide example data as a data step so code can be tested. Also I added an id value that the two homeless variables didn't change to show the result. Proc Report or Tabulate could do so as well. proc format library=work; invalue myyesno (upcase) 'YES' = 1 'NO' = 0 other = . ; /* making numeric values from the text*/ data example; input ChildID $ Homelessnow $ Homelessrecently $ Date :anydtdte.; format date date9.; HNnum =input(Homelessnow, myyesno.); HRnum = input (Homelessrecently, myyesno.); datalines; 123 Yes no 10/12/12 123 Yes Yes 2/1/13 123 No no 4/1/13 456 Yes Yes 11/12/12 456 No no 4/2/13 456 Yes Yes 6/1/13 457 Yes Yes 11/12/12 457 Yes Yes 4/2/13 457 Yes Yes 6/1/13 ; proc means data=example range; class childid; var hnnum hrnum; run; Other reasons to code yes/no or True/false values as numeric 1/0. You can sum the variable and get the count of "Yes" easily. The Mean of a 1/0 coded variable is the percent of "Yes" results. Or if you have multiple variables in a record that you need to know     how many were "Yes" : Sum     All the same: Range      Any were 'Yes': Max     Any were 'No': Min     how many were 'No':  N of variables - Sum of variables    ALL of these multivariable questions are one line of code. If you work with Yes/No text (and not consistently spelled in your example) you get to right something that either 1) creates numeric values and uses the summary functions or 2) LOTS of ugly if/then/else counting code. ... View more

catx will work if the target variable is large enough    length oneVar $5500; oneVar = catx(" ", of result:);   ... View more