Date:         Wed, 6 Jun 2001 13:24:04 -0400
Reply-To:     "Shilling, Brian [PRI]" <BShillin@PRIUS.JNJ.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         "Shilling, Brian [PRI]" <BShillin@PRIUS.JNJ.COM>
Subject:      Re: How to make a dataset with 0 observations?
Comments: To: John Whittington <John.W@MEDISCIENCE.CO.UK>
Content-Type: multipart/alternative;

you could shorten the keystrokes even more by leaving out the data set name;

data;
x=y;
stop;
run;

would create a work dataset called DATA1.

How is that for messy?

Brian

> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Whittington [SMTP:John.W@MEDISCIENCE.CO.UK]
> Sent: Wednesday, June 06, 2001 1:06 PM
> To:   SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject:      Re: How to make a dataset with 0 observations?
>
> At 12:02 05/06/01 -0400, Jay Weedon wrote:
>
> >Wow, I received about 6 responses in an hour. Thanks so much! Inspired
> >by them, I found yet another solution:
> >
> >data new;
> >  x=.; y=.; delete;
> >run;
>
> If this has turned into a 'minimise the number of keystrokes' game, then:
>
> 1... STOP has two less characters than does DELETE, but works just as
> well.
>
> 2... If you don't mind the 'uninitialised' message in the log, you can
> make
> use of the fact that mention of a variable on the RIGHT hand side (as well
> as left hand side) of an assignment statement result in that variable
> being
> 'created', to knock off a further two keystrokes, with:
>
> data new;
>   x=y; stop;
> run ;
>
> ... and, of course, if you really wanted to become a 'messy programmer',
> you could miss out the RUN statement as well, provided there was some
> subsequent step in the program!  Hence my very best ('messy') offer would
> be:
>
> data new;x=y;stop;
>
> ... and I really can't see how you could reduce the number of keystrokes
> any further - you are always going to need a STOP (or DELETE) statement to
> prevent any observations being created, and you obviously must mention the
> two variables you want (X and Y);  all that my 'best offer' has in
> addition
> that that is one equals sign, which is about as modest as you could get!
>
> Kind Regards,
>
>
> John
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------
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