Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2011 10:52:59 -0500
Reply-To: Arthur Tabachneck <art297@ROGERS.COM>
Sender: "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From: Arthur Tabachneck <art297@ROGERS.COM>
Subject: Re: proc contents
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
I totally agree that Joe's suggestion using a %include is definitely the way
Paul should go. However, I was playing with creating multiple macro
variables and realized that I didn't know how to do it efficiently using
proc sql.
For example, the following works, but definitely isn't generalizable:
/*create test file*/
data spssfile;
retain question1-question13000 1;
run;
/*run proc contents*/
proc contents data=spssfile noprint out=contents;
run;
/*create sequence number based on variable name length*/
data contents (drop=length_after);
set contents (keep=name);
if _n_ eq 1 or length_after gt 32000 then do;
sequence+1;
length_after=0;
end;
length_after+length(name);
run;
/*create size-controlled macro variables*/
proc sql noprint;
select name into :mvar1 separated by " "
from contents
where sequence eq 1
;
select name into :mvar2 separated by " "
from contents
where sequence eq 2
;
select name into :mvar3 separated by " "
from contents
where sequence eq 3
;
select name into :mvar4 separated by " "
from contents
where sequence eq 4
;
select name into :mvar5 separated by " "
from contents
where sequence eq 5
;
quit;
Is there a way to write the above sql code that wouldn't require hard coding
the necessary splits?
Art
-------
On Wed, 2 Mar 2011 08:30:48 -0600, Joe Matise <snoopy369@GMAIL.COM> wrote:
>Paul, I still recommend not actually inserting a list of 12749 variables
>into your code; it makes the code entirely unreadable. Do as Mikee
suggests
>and put it to a file, and then %include it in your proc whatever:
>
>filename outnames "c:\temp\class_varnames.txt";
>
>data _null_;
>set sashelp.vcolumn(where=(memname = "CLASS"));
>
>file outnames;
>
>put name;
>
>run;
>
>proc freq data=sashelp.class;
>table
>%include outnames;
>;
>run;
>
>Note the double ; as the first ends %include.
>
>-Joe
>
>On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 5:33 PM, Swank, Paul R
<Paul.R.Swank@uth.tmc.edu>wrote:
>
>> I have a multivariate data set with 12749 variables. Several hundred of
>> these variables represent observations done by 2 raters on two occasions.
So
>> there are four observations on each variable. I need to do a reliability
>> with rater and occasion as facets of the measurement model. I use varcomp
of
>> mixed to get the variance components to use in computing intraclass
>> correlations. The data has to be in univariate format. The variable names
>> and there order in the data step are such that there is no way to specify
a
>> range of variables so each variable has to be typed out. I am lazy,
number
>> 1, and a poor typist number 2. I usually do a proc contents short to list
>> the variable names to my output file. Then I copy them into the program
and
>> I can just copy and paste them into the steps I need to do. It saves a
lot
>> of typing and also cuts down on errors of mistyping the variable name.
>> However, it seems that �proc contents short� has a limit on the number
of
>> variables it will print. Proc contents itself does not seem to but it
lists
>> all the variable names in a column along with labels and other stuff. Not
>> very convenient for cutting and pasting hundreds of variable names. So I
was
>> hoping there was some way to get the list of the variable names that goes
>> across the page rather than just down. But it appears that using the data
>> definition method with proc sql has the same limitation as proc contents
>> short. SO I am left with typing out all these variable names into a list
so
>> I can format the data the way I want. I have never had to do this with
such
>> a large data set and surprised to find that proc contents short does not
>> work in this case. That�s it in a nutshell.
>>
>>
>>
>> Paul
>>
>>
>>
>> Dr. Paul R. Swank,
>>
>> Professor and Director of Research
>>
>> Children's Learning Institute
>>
>> University of Texas Health Science Center-Houston
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Joe Matise [mailto:snoopy369@gmail.com]
>> *Sent:* Tuesday, March 01, 2011 5:04 PM
>> *To:* Swank, Paul R
>> *Cc:* SAS-L@listserv.uga.edu
>> *Subject:* Re: proc contents
>>
>>
>>
>> Paul, what are you actually trying to do? I do hope it's not "make a
keep
>> list with 12000 variables written out in my code", if so you should use a
>> macro variable with SELECT INTO (well, or a dataset written out into a
text
>> file, depending on whether the list is over the length limitation, I
think
>> 64k charcters if I recall correctly).
>>
>> If it's not that, then what are you doing with it? Odds are you can use
>> some sort of programmatic code to do whatever it is either using PROC
>> CONTENTS output to a dataset or DICTIONARY.TABLES (which is essentially
the
>> table equivalent of PROC CONTENTS).
>>
>> Also, SPSS should be able to give you the same list, in html or excel
>> format. I have had to do that before in order to deal with name
shortening
>> ...
>>
>> -Joe
>>
>> On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 4:34 PM, Swank, Paul R <Paul.R.Swank@uth.tmc.edu>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Someone who shall remain nameless has sent me an SPSS data set of over
>> 12000 variables. After finally getting it converted to a .por file and
>> bringing it into SAS I want to get a short list of the variable names so
I
>> can cut and paste them in my program. None of the filenames make any
sense
>> and are not ordered to make it easy to specify ranges of variables. I
>> usually do this with "proc contents short;" However, while "proc
contents;"
>> will list the entire set of variable names with labels etc to the output
>> window, "proc contents short;" will not. It truncates the list of
variables.
>> Does anyone have a clue how I can get around this problem. I'm trying not
to
>> have to type hundreds of variable names in my program nor copy and paste
>> them one at a time.
>>
>> Dr. Paul R. Swank,
>> Professor and Director of Research
>> Children's Learning Institute
>> University of Texas Health Science Center-Houston
>>
>>
>>
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