Posted 10-06-2014 03:48 PM (4033 views) | In reply to need_sas_help. You can rename a dataset in SAS with the CHANGE statement. The statement starts with the CHANGE keyword, followed by the current table name, an equal sign, and the new table name. The CHANGE statement is part of the PROC DATASETS procedure. In this article, we discuss the CHANGE statement and two other methods to rename a dataset. informat=$20. SAS sets the length of NAME to 32 bytes. Example: Convert Numeric Variable to Character in SAS. In this case, the variable Name would be read first. SAS Help Center. ; Note: If a variable appears several times in a data This example uses a LENGTH statement to set the length of the character variable NAME to 25 bytes. Example: libname inlib 'SAS data-library' cvpbytes=5; However, expanded length will be automatically limited by the character variable maximum length of 32767. The -l left aligns the result (so the extra spaces are ignored). We can, however, change the order the frequencies are displayed by using the order = formatted option. So, if you want to change the length of the column name to 25 characters, you need this LENGTH statement. The values in a table are either truncated or padded with blanks (if character data) as necessary to meet the specified length attribute. SAS Code If the variable is numeric, the length applies only to the output data set. This LENGTH statement assigns a length of 10 to the character variable Airport: Note: If you use a LENGTH statement to assign a length to a character variable, then it must be the first reference to the character variables in the DATA step. The LENGTH setting is the optional length of this character variable. The name(s) of the variable(s) of which you want to change. My code defined height_class by setting the value Tall first, which has a length of 4. format=$30. OTHER keyword. Anything within the parenthesis must be Teradata SQL, not SAS SQL. When we read the sasdl.study2016 dataset using the set statement, we rename our variables-to-be-modified Since no informat is used SAS will give a default length of 8. a) if there is some option in proc sql to make it respect the dbmax_text. PDF EPUB Feedback. The longer the length, the greater the precision allowed within the column values. The maximum length of any character value in SAS is 32,767 bytes. The maximum length of any character value in SAS is 32,767 bytes. /* set unique value in case of default value missing */. This example uses a VALUE statement to create a character format that prints a value of a character variable as a different character string. You can specify a value from 0 to 32766. This example uses a LENGTH statement to set the length of the character variable NAME to 25 bytes. This LENGTH statement assigns a length of 10 to the character variable Airport: length Airport $ 10; Note: If you use a LENGTH statement to assign a length to a character variable, then it must be the first reference to the character variables in the DATA step. This code runs without errors nut does not change the length. Sporty cars are displayed first because the variable is coded 1. Helpful hints and suggestionsSet values to missing and then recode them.Use new variable names when you create or recode variables. Avoid constructions like this, total = total + sub1 + sub2; that reuse the variable name total.Use the missing option with proc freq to make sure all missing values are accounted for. modify var_name char(10) format=$10. This LENGTH statement assigns a length of 10 to the character variable Airport: length Airport $ 10; Note: If you use a LENGTH statement to assign a length to a character variable, then it must be the first reference to the character variables in the DATA step. The second method to delete a variable label in SAS is with PROC SQL. In the following program, we use a length statement prior to input statement to adjust varying length of a variable. The SAS code has at least 4 steps: Use only $ instead of $30. format=$30., put (segid) as fbu1 length=$30. label='someLabel'. PROC SQL The AS keyword can be used in PROC SQL to change the variable name or assign a name to a computed value. after "Name" in INPUT statement. Instead of * place the fields and specifications needed. SAS User Groups US SAS User GroupsSAS Canada Community SAS Canada Content New to SAS? SAS Community Nordic Nordic Events and Presentations SAS Nordic Users GroupSAS Professionals UK&I SAS Professionals UK&I News and Events SAS Professionals UK&I DiscussionSAS Japan Japan SAS Discussion FAQ BlogSAS Korea SAS Tech & Tip SAS Q&A SAS NewsMore items If you so desired you could change the length of numeric variables in the same way, but that comes with the lost of IN SAS, since the value is in quotes you do not have to "declare" the variable as character as with some other languages. To remove the label with PROC SQL you specify the variable name, the LABEL keyword, an equal sign, and two quotes without a blank. SAS Component Language 9.4: Reference, Third Edition. You can arbitrarily choose 32 (as that's much longer than it should be) or any other value at least 10 or so SAS Help Center. SAS thinks the variables are 4000 characters long: ; quit; 2. insert the string " No_def_v ". Video: How to Write JSON Output from SAS. If you omit the LENGTH statement, SAS sets the length of NAME to 32. data testlength; informat FirstName LastName $15. -l)) from test; quit; to use that function. SAS 9.4 and SAS Viya 3.5 Programming Documentation SAS SQL Procedure Users Guide. I can shorten the Make column to 5 characters without truncating the values, making my table size smaller on disk and in memory.. PROC SQL with an ALTER TABLE statement and a MODIFY clause will change a tables ; This example uses a LENGTH statement to set the length of the character variable NAME to 25. Format: USCurrency. *-----; * Original Dataset * * x has a length of 20 here; *-----; data test1; length x $20; input x $; datalines; abc def ghi jkl ; run; proc contents data=test1; run; *-----; * Change the length of y to 3; *-----; *-----; * Solution 1 : length statement; * * This solution creates a warning if the new length is shorted than the old one; * * WARNING: Multiple lengths were specified for the variable x; * by The first way to reorder the variables in your SAS dataset is with PROC SQL. SAS uses the BESTw. in the REFERENCES clause, refers to the name of table that contains the primary key that is referenced by the foreign key. Therefore, the best position in the DATA step for The lengths of character variables are increased by adding the specified bytes value to the current length. Comparisons. Base SAS 9.4 Procedures Guide, Seventh Edition documentation.sas.com. EDIT - adding some screen shots. table-name can be a one-level name, a two-level libref.table name, or a physical pathname that is enclosed in single quotation marks. If no length is specified, the JSON LIBNAME engine sets this length to maximum length of all values that it has seen for this variable. sas. Example 1: Rename One Variable. To change the length of character variables, the LENGTH statement consists of 3 steps:The LENGTH keyword.The name (s) of the variable (s) of which you want to change.A dollar sign followed by the desired length. Data set: PROCLIB.STAFF. Procedure features: VALUE statement. Thus, height_class was b) any documentation about how SAS processes the character lengths in the create table statements of proc sql? format, where w is the width of the character variable and has a maximum value of 32. n1 6.2; input firstname lastname n1 n2; length name $25 default=4; name=trim(lastname)||', '||firstname; datalines; Alexander Robinson 35 11 ; proc contents data=testlength; run; proc print data=testlength; run; Customer Support SAS Documentation. proc sql; create table want as select catx ('-', name, age) as name_age length=20 , catx (':', name, sex, height) as name_gender_height from sashelp.class; The length of a new variable will be 200 characters if the variable the CATX result is being assigned to does not have a length specified. Customer Support SAS Documentation. You cannot change a character column to numeric and vice versa. proc sql; select name into :vname separated by ' ' from dictionary.columns where LIBNAME='WORK' /*NEED TO BE CAPPED*/ AND MEMNAME='TTO'/*NEED TO BE CAPPED*/ AND type='char'; quit; SQL Procedure. Example 2: Creating a Format for Character Values. A numeric format name can be up to 32 characters in length. It also changes the default number of bytes that SAS uses to store the values of newly created numeric variables from 8 to 4. DATA Step Programming . data DC.input_analysis_res; set DC.input_analysis_res; if Default_value in ('',' ','-','.') To change a column's data type, drop the column and then add it (and its data) again, or use the DATA step. ); The following example shows how to use this function in practice. Interaction: The $CHAR w. and $ w. formats do not trim leading blanks. proc sql; create table want as select catx('-', name, age) as name_age length=20 , catx(':', name, sex, height) as name_gender_height from sashelp.class; The length of a new variable will be 200 characters if the variable the CATX result is being assigned to does not have a length specified. 1. increase the length of the variable: proc sql; alter table DC.input_analysis_res. This tutorial explains how to add or delete columns in a table and update column values with PROC SQL. SAS Component Language 9.4: Reference, Third Edition documentation.sas.com. then Default_value='No_def_v';run; If the variable is character or varchar, the length applies to the program data vector and the output data set. In the example below, several variables are renamed and the difference of group1.ss-group2.ss is named ssdiff. For numeric columns, the valid lengths are usually 3 through 8. C PUT () converts character variable with a user defined format to another character variable. A dollar sign followed by the desired length. or. The SAS code below removes the label from the SPECIES variable. A PUT () converts character variable to another character variable. The Perl regular expression (PRX) functions and CALL routines work together to manipulate strings that match patterns. The following code shows how to rename just the x variable in the dataset: /*rename one variable*/ data new_data; set original_data (rename= (x=new_x)); run; /*view new dataset*/ proc print data=new_data; Notice that x has been renamed to new_x, but every other variable name remained the same. For example, DOLLAR18.2 instead of DOLLAR12.2. Re: proc sql: how to assign length to constant char var? Var2 is read with an informat, the length is set to be 3.; LEFT and RIGHT variables are created with an assignment statement. In the report, the longest value in the Make column is 5 characters long but the table metadata shows a column width of 13 characters. So, if you are familiar with writing SQL code, this method might be the easiest for you to rearrange the column positions. in the ALTER TABLE statement, refers to the name of the table that is to be altered. Remove a Variable Label with PROC SQL. DATA Step Reference . The LENGTH statement also changes the default number of bytes that SAS uses to store the values of newly created numeric variables from 8 to 4 bytes. Length: The column length, in SAS terms, is the amount of storage allocated in the data set to hold the column values. If you want to change the types, you can do some of it in the location where you currently are selecting *. This option prints frequencies in alphabetical order as determined by the formatted value, as illustrated below. informat=$20. In this case, SAS shows a warning like this Warning: multiple lengths are specified for the variable var_name by input dataset(s) Heres a code you can use to change the variable length and format for a character variable: proc sql; alter table in.hh_diab_msd_16. In SAS, length() takes a character string as argument(only). I'd like to modify an existing SAS data set in a way that not only reduces the length of a character variable within it to the length of its largest value, but also removes the format and/or informat from that variable. Component Objects. Reporting Procedure Styles Tip Sheet. informat=$CHAR6. The name must be a valid SAS name. Dear experts, on the basis of our explanation I am trying co change my data as it follows: 1. increase the length of the variable: proc sql; alter table DC.input_analysis_res modify Default_value char(20) format=$20. For information about the use of the LENGTH statement in PROC steps, see Base SAS Procedures Guide. PROC SQL is a powerful SAS Base procedure that you can use to process SQL statements. Restriction: Format names cannot end in a number. If you are creating a character format, then use a dollar sign ($) as the first character. ; quit; The length is specified in bytes. Note, if SAS doesnt display the format correctly, you might change the length of the format. Re: Change All Character variables' length. You would have to convert the numeric variable to character: proc sql; select length(put(x,32. The LENGTH statement also changes the default number of bytes that SAS uses to store the values of newly created numeric variables from 8 to 4 bytes. proc sql; select group1.grade, group1.name as name1, group2.name as name2, group1.ss as ss1, group2.ss as ss2, sex, To change the length of character variables, the LENGTH statement consists of 3 steps: The LENGTH keyword. For information about the use of the LENGTH statement in PROC steps, see Base SAS The ATTRIB statement can assign the length as well as other attributes of variables. The maximum length of any character value in SAS is 32,767 bytes. modify Default_value char (20) format=$20. In this code, first, using proc sql and SAS view sashelp.vcolumn, we create a macro variable varlist to hold the list of all the variable names in our table, sasdl.study2016.. Then in the data step, we use a retain statement to preserve the variable order. This occurred because SAS sets the length of a new character variable as the length of the first value given in its definition. B PUT () converts numeric variable to a character variable with numeric value. The $CHAR w. format is identical to the $ w. format.. For information about the use of the LENGTH statement in PROC steps, see Base SAS How to Reorder Columns in SAS. Besides numeric variables, you can also use the FORMAT statement to format character variables. You will need to create a new variable from the old variable with the new data type and then drop and rename to D INPUT () converts character variable with numeric value and informat to a numeric variable. Var1 is reading list input. Actually, I expected the following code to work: ALTER TABLE WORK.someTable MODIFY someColumn length=8 format=$CHAR6. length Name $30. To read bigger number like 3,000,000, you can use comma10. The syntax for changing length is inconsistent with the syntax for changing format/informat/label. A character format name can be up to 31 characters in length. character_var = put (numeric_var, 8. For more numeric formats, see these pages (1, 2).How to Format a Character Variable. Suppose we have the following dataset in SAS that shows the total sales made by some store during 10 consecutive days: Getting started with sas; Copy a file, byte for byte; Creating Macro Variables; data step; DO Loop; Informats in SAS; Proc SQL; Reading Data; Resolving Macro Variables in quotes within PROC SQL Pass-throughs; SAS Formats; SAS Labels; Sending an email with SAS; Using Joins in SAS; Variable Length; Assigning length to a character variable Posted 08-05-2014 02:18 PM (1040 views) | In reply to swimmer. select age length=$30. /* create macrovariable varlist containing a list of variable names */ proc sql noprint; select name into:varlist separated by ' ' from sashelp.vcolumn where upcase (libname) eq 'SASDL' and upcase (memname) eq 'STUDY2016'; quit; /* modify variable type and length */ data sasdl.study2016 (drop =v1-v4); retain &varlist; *<-- preserve variable order ; length subjid You cannot change the type of a variable. DATA Step Quick Reference. SAS Programmers Guide: Essentials documentation.sas.com SAS Help Center: Examples: Create and Modify SAS Variables Examples: Create and Modify SAS Variables The PRXCHANGE function is similar to the CALL PRXCHANGE routine except that the function returns the value of the pattern-matching replacement as a return argument instead of as one of its parameters. So, the length of these variables is equal to the number of bytes in the literals following the = sign. Related: How to Convert Character Variable to Numeric in SAS.