Date:         Wed, 10 Jan 2001 14:54:31 -0500
Reply-To:     Ian Whitlock <WHITLOI1@WESTAT.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Ian Whitlock <WHITLOI1@WESTAT.COM>
Subject:      Re: A curiosity question:
Comments: To: Amy Roehrig Swinford <aimless@FIBER.NET>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Amy,

Your first statement answers the question, but the second is debatable as
shown by the log

273  data w ; y = 1 ; run ;

NOTE: The data set WORK.W has 1 observations and 1 variables.
NOTE: DATA statement used:
      real time           0.37 seconds


274
275  data _null_ ;
276     put first.x= ;
277     first.x= 7 ;
278     set w ;
279  run ;

first.x=0
first.x=7
NOTE: There were 1 observations read from the dataset WORK.W.
NOTE: DATA statement used:
      real time           0.10 seconds

The first PUT shows the value 0 since the variable was not initialized by a
BY statement.
The second PUT gives the value 7 because FIRST.X is a retained automatic
variable.

Ian Whitlock <whitloi1@westat.com>


-----Original Message-----
From: Amy Roehrig Swinford [mailto:aimless@FIBER.NET]
Sent: Wednesday, January 10, 2001 2:35 PM
To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: A curiosity question:


Aldi,
  I think this has more to do with the fact that you have no BY
statement in your data step. First. and Last. notation depend upon a BY
statement.
Hope this helps,
Amy

Aldi Kraja wrote:

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