Andy: If you go way back in the excellent SAS-L archives you will find a SAS Macro that I wrote, very similar to SAS Macros that others have written, that selects SAS variable names from DICTIONARY.columns into a comma-delimited list and assigns the list to a SAS macrovariable that will expand in a SAS program. More recently I've tended to use the SAS data option DELETE when I have to subset a large and cumbersome list of variables. S

-----Original Message----- From: SAS(r) Discussion [mailto:SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Andrew Clapson Sent: Friday, October 16, 2009 3:46 PM To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Generating line of variable names

Hey all,

In the process of sifting through variables in a data set I'm working on - one for which someone decided to use rather cumbersome variable names - I thought how much easier it would be to simply paste a spaced line of the different variable names, and then just delete the ones that I want to drop (or keep, as the case may be).

Is there any way to get SAS to print a line of variable names for a given dataset? Some variant of a PROC CONTENTS perhaps? Even better would be assigning this process to a function key (via a recorded macro, maybe?), to print the full list of variables at a keystroke for a KEEP, DROP, or RETAIN command.

Any thoughts?

Andy Clapson