@Reeza, I agree with your diagnostic of OP's syntax error.   However, a simple WHERE clause is just as efficient as the ON clause of an INNER JOIN. One is simply translated into the other, when possible. I do prefer the JOIN syntax because it is more explicit, but it isn't more efficient. ... View more

data A ; input state object_id $; cards; 1 a 1 b 2 a ; run; data B; input state object_id $; cards; 1 a 1 b 2 a 2 b 3 a ; run; data want; set a(in=ina) b; by state; retain in_a; if first.state then in_a=ina; if in_a; drop in_a; run; ... View more

So @RahulG, @cons, what's the problem? ... View more

Hello @cons,   As to the remaining questions in your initial post:   The default length of format VALUENAME depends on the labels in the format definition. Typically (if there are no references to other formats or functions using the [...] notation), it will be the length of the longest label. Your "31 or 32" sound like the maximum lengths of format names (31 for character formats, not counting the leading dollar sign, and 32 for numeric formats), which were increased in SAS 9 (not only SAS 9.2) compared to SAS 8, where they were 7 and 8 respectively. To my knowledge, "SAS uses w.d as the default numeric informat and $w. as the default character informat" (see documentation of INFORMAT statement), but these informats don't have default lengths (unlike many other informats). In particular, there is no general default informat length of "8 bytes" and this has not changed between SAS 9.2 and SAS 9.4. Please don't confuse this with the default length of numeric or character variables. ... View more

Hello @cons,   Yes, you can combine the NOT operator with the IS NULL or IS MISSING operator in a WHERE statement.   I don't see a difference between the tables of WHERE statement operators for SAS 9.2 and SAS 9.4. There can be no doubt that a combination as in where not (x is null); is valid. Even the notation where x is not null; works and it is mentioned in the section "Use of Indexes" of the WHERE statement documentation of both SAS 9.2 and 9.4 (see links above). ... View more