Date:         Thu, 1 Feb 2001 19:49:53 GMT
Reply-To:     care781@MY-DEJA.COM
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         care781@MY-DEJA.COM
Organization: Deja.com
Subject:      selecting most recent dates

Hallo,

I need to find a way of choosing the two
dates just before and just after a third
date (date of retirement).

Each individual has multiple interviews,
each in its own row.  A variable 'DATE'
identifies the date of interview.  Different
individuals have different numbers of interviews.
There is also a variable called 'RETDATE'
that identifies each individual's date of
retirement.

What I want to do is select the two interviews
just before and the two interviews just
after RETDATE, and create a file with only
those 4 interviews for each individual,
each in its own row.

Some people may not have 2 interview dates
before and after retirement, but I want 4
cases/rows for each person all the same.

I wrote some really clunky code which works
(sorting the positive and negative differences
in days separately, and using the 'first.id'
variable, blah blah), but I know there is a much
more elegant approach, probably using arrays or
loops or something wonderfully simple but beyond
my grasp at the moment.

Any help would be much appreciated,

C.


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