Date:         Mon, 7 Jul 2008 12:14:11 -0400
Reply-To:     "Howard Schreier <hs AT dc-sug DOT org>"
              <schreier.junk.mail@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         "Howard Schreier <hs AT dc-sug DOT org>"
              <schreier.junk.mail@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: How To Quickly Examine Multiple Fields and Select Nonmissing
              Value(s)

On Mon, 7 Jul 2008 07:40:51 -0700, Takeadoe <mtonkovich@MSN.COM> wrote:

>On Jul 7, 10:13 am, Takeadoe <mtonkov...@msn.com> wrote:
>> Good morning,
>>
>> I've got a job that needs far more experience than I have.  A sample
>> of the dataset follows: I'm using "m" to indicate missing value.
>>
>> ID1   ID2   ID3  ID4  ID5  ID6
>> 6       m    m    m    m    m
>> m      98   m    m    m    m
>> m      m    76   76   m    m
>> 8       m    m    m   m    m
>>
>> My goal is a dataset that looks like this:
>>
>> ID
>> 6
>> 98
>> 76
>> 8
>>
>> So, how can I easily check each of the 6 ID fields and assign the
>> nonmissing value to the new variable ID?  Note that there will be an
>> occassion where a record may contain 2 or more nonmissing values.  The
>> values will be the same in all cases when that happens.
>>
>> Any help at all, would be great.  The dataset is nearly 1,000,000
>> records.
>
>Hey gang - I started reading through some of the other posts (probably
>something I should have done first, sorry) and realized that the max()
>function was just what I needed!

Or the MIN function, or MEAN, or MEDIAN. If values are positive add GEOMEAN
and a few others to the list.