03-Working-With-Your-Data推荐.pdf

The Little SAS Book: A Primer, Fifth Edition Chapter 3: Working With Your Data Contrariwise, continued Tweedledee, if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isnt, it aint. Thats logic. Lewis Carroll From Alice Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll. Public domain. 3.1 Creating and Redefining Variables If someone were to compile a list of the most popular things to do with SAS software, creating and redefining variables would surely be near the top. Fortunately, SAS is flexible and uses a common sense approach to these tasks. You create and redefine variables with assignment statements using this basic form: variable = expression; On the left side of the equal sign is a variable name, either new or old. On the right side of the equal sign may appear a constant, another variable, or a mathematical expression. Here are examples of these basic types of assignment statements: Type of expression Assignment statement numeric constant Qwerty = 10; character constant Qwerty = ten; a variable Qwerty = OldVar; addition Qwerty = OldVar + 10; subtraction Qwerty = OldVar - 10; multiplication Qwerty = OldVar * 10; division Qwerty = OldVar / 10; exponentiation Qwerty = OldVar ** 10; Whether the variable Qwerty is numeric or character depends on the expression that defines it. When the expression is numeric, Qwerty will be numeric; when it is character, Qwerty will be character. When deciding how to interpret your expression, SAS follows the standard mathematical rules of precedence: SAS performs exponentiation first, then multiplication and division, followed by addition and subtraction. You can use parentheses to override that order. Here are two similar SAS statements showing that a couple of parentheses can mak