On Thu, 28 Mar 2002 10:49:45 -0600, Mai To <mto@ADMIN4.HSC.UTH.TMC.EDU> wrote:

>My dataset has these info: > >Emp.ID Name Hire date Termination date >10000 Smith, A 1996-03-15 1996-12-31 >10000 Smith, A 1997-05-17 1998-05-16 >10000 Smith, A 2000-02-15 >10001 White, M 1996-04-28 >10002 Darcy, R 2000-02-13 2002-01-31 >10002 Darcy, R 1997-06-10 1999-08-31 > >What I'm trying to do is to find the LATEST hire date, exp. Smith, A >would have 2000-02-15, Darcy R would have 2000-02-13. > >I have the input data as follow: > >Data date; > Infile date; > Input @ 5 Empid $5. > @ 20 Name $30. > @ 55 Hire $10. > @ 70 Term $10.; > >Proc sort data=date; > By descending Hire; > >Data date2; set date; > By descending Hire; > >Proc sort data=date2; > By Empid; > >Data date3; set date2; > By Empid; > If first.empid; > >It gave me the result I need, but is there a shorter/better way? > >Your help is very much appreciated. > >Mia >

What you can do insted is:

1. read the hire date as numeric, e.g. with

input .... §55 hire : yymmdd10. ..

then use

proc summary data=... nway; class empid name; var hire; output out=x max=; run;

I'd prefer reading ALL dates as numeric. Also with your method that would be better.