On Wed, 17 Dec 2008 13:19:55 -0800, Bill McKirgan <Bill.McKirgan@GMAIL.COM> wrote:

>Hi SASers, > >I'm trying to think of a more elegant (read shorter) way of coding the >example I provide below. In the example I am comparing a variable >called FSIQ with another variable PIQ to see if PIQ is within plus/ >minus 5 points of FSIQ. This works, but I need to apply it to a bunch >of other variables, and would like to avoid a large copy/paste/modify >job that may cause me to introduce errors. > >Can anyone suggest one or more shorter ways of doing this? Perhaps an >array? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I'm stumped. Many >thanks in advance. > >-- Bill > > >data testing; set itbs.iq_data_final; > >piq_within_5pts = 0; > >if fsiq = piq then piq_within_5pts = 1; else > >if fsiq = piq + 1 then piq_within_5pts = 1; else >if fsiq = piq + 2 then piq_within_5pts = 1; else >if fsiq = piq + 3 then piq_within_5pts = 1; else >if fsiq = piq + 4 then piq_within_5pts = 1; else >if fsiq = piq + 5 then piq_within_5pts = 1; else > >if fsiq = piq - 1 then piq_within_5pts = 1; else >if fsiq = piq - 2 then piq_within_5pts = 1; else >if fsiq = piq - 3 then piq_within_5pts = 1; else >if fsiq = piq - 4 then piq_within_5pts = 1; else >if fsiq = piq - 5 then piq_within_5pts = 1; > >put fsiq piq @20 piq_within_5pts ; > >run;

I trust that there are no missing values. Bill's code actually returns a 1 (true) result if both variables are missing; probably not wanted.

Here is a technique which is almost exactly equivalent, but is much shorter and generates a 0 (false) given two missing values:

piq_within_5pts = (piq - fsiq) in (-5 : 5);