Hi Jack and Ram,

Here is one way to dynamically determine the length of the vlist variable for the data supplied:

* dynamically determine max length for vlist ; proc sql noprint; select max(lenpluscommas)-1 into :maxvlist from ( select sum(length(var1)) as maxgrplen, count(id) as grpcount, calculated maxgrplen + calculated grpcount as lenpluscommas from have group by id ); quit; %put maxvlist is >&maxvlist<;

then: length vlist $100 duplicates $1; becomes: length vlist $&maxvlist duplicates $1;

Hope this is helpful.

Mark Terjeson Senior Programmer Analyst, IM&R Russell Investments

Russell Investments Global Leaders in Multi-Manager Investing

-----Original Message----- From: SAS(r) Discussion [mailto:SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Jack Clark Sent: Wednesday, October 03, 2007 7:23 AM To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Re: how to flag duplicates ?

Ram,

Here is a possible DATA step solution. I set the concatenated variable's length to $100 - you can adjust as appropriate. Or maybe someone else can suggest a more dynamic way to manage the length.

data have; infile cards missover; input id var1 $2.; cards; 1 xy 1 bc 1 cn 2 lm 2 lc 3 cm 3 cn 4 fr 5 gt 6 uy run;

proc sort data = have; by id var1; run;

data need1 (keep=id vlist) need2 (keep=id var1 duplicates); length vlist $100 duplicates $1; set have; by id; retain vlist; if first.id then vlist = var1; else do; duplicates = '1'; vlist = catx(', ',vlist,var1); end; if last.id then output need1; output need2; run;

title1 'First Format'; proc print data = need1; var id vlist; run;

title1 'Second Format'; proc print data = need2; var id var1 duplicates; run;

Jack Clark Research Analyst Center for Health Program Development and Management University of Maryland, Baltimore County

-----Original Message----- From: SAS(r) Discussion [mailto:SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of ram.sasha@gmail.com Sent: Wednesday, October 03, 2007 9:59 AM To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: how to flag duplicates ?

I have a dataset in the following format:

id var1 1 xy 1 bc 1 cn 2 lm 2 lc 3 cm 3 cn 4 fr 5 gt 6 uy

I want the above dataset in 2 different formats: format 1: concatenate all the var1 values into one variable id var1 1 xy,bc,cn 2 lm ,lc 3 cm,cn 4 fr 5 gt 6 uy

format 2: requires a dup flag in the duplicate entries

id var1 duplicates 1 xy 1 bc 1 1 cn 1 2 lm 2 lc 1 3 cm 3 cn 1 4 fr 5 gt 6 uy

Thanks for the help Ram