Date: Wed, 17 Jul 2002 14:59:43 -0400
Reply-To: "Dorfman, Paul" <Paul.Dorfman@BCBSFL.COM>
Sender: "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From: "Dorfman, Paul" <Paul.Dorfman@BCBSFL.COM>
Subject: Re: new notation for me: .X, .Z
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1
> From: Leo Chan [mailto:leo.y.h.chan@GRADUATE.HKU.HK]
>
> It is called special missing value and described in language
> guide, the thickest sas manual. There are .A - .Z.
Leo,
Close but not quite. The principle is that there are as many missing values
as there are letters in the alphabet plus underscore and blank. Thus, the
entire missing series is in the ascending order:
._ , . , .a , .b , ... , .z
So, by induction, the standard numeric missing is nothing else but
"dot-blank". Now it seems to be quite logical, since the standard character
missing (granted, the only one there is) is just blank. And logical things
are easy to remember by association.
> Processing on those value are the same as "." while they are difference
in comparison and
> grouping (include formatting).
If I did not already know what you meant, I would not comprehend. I would,
though, if you said something like "The system functions and procedures
treat each of these values as a missing value, or null, but comparison
operators evaluate them as different values according to the collating
sequence shown above. The system can be opted to read corresponding
characters as missing values. The standard numeric format prints missing
values as their respective identifying characters,except for the standard
missing (dot-blank), which is printed as a period".
Kind regards,
====================
Paul M. Dorfman
Jacksonville, FL
====================
> "Xavier Autret" <xav_x@noos.fr> wrote in message
> news:f76de91b.0207170006.3c70e562@posting.google.com...
> > That s very new for me...
> > Can someone can explain the null numeric value like .X, .Z ...
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