Doug, You might have already got the solution. If not, then you have to make the following changes in your your program:

In the "data" statement use the "keep=" option e.g. data housing(keep=cust ........); In the "set" statement SAS does not like any option. Therefore after ";" use "rename" e.g.

set housing1; rename cust=cust_id..............; Please be careful about the var names in "keep=" those are new renamed variables.

Good Luck

>>> mvs_user <trigabyte@HOTMAIL.COM> 06/29/00 01:24AM >>> I am having a few problems with the following syntax.... I am trying to use rename in version 8 to change the name of some variables before merging them with a similar data set but they don't appear to change for me. I have looked in the SAS Language reference book (for version 6) and in the online doc for version 8 but cant seem to get it right.

data housing.partner2 (rename =(cust_id=part_id p_id=c_id faflag=pfaflag ra_amt=pra_amt rent_amt=prnt_amt)); set housing.partner1 (keep = cust_id p_id faflag ra_amt rent_amt p_inc); run;

Thanks in advance.

Doug

Muhammad Akhtar