Date:         Tue, 16 Nov 1999 11:00:53 -0500
Reply-To:     Jacques Thibault <JacquesT@IPRONLINE.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Jacques Thibault <JacquesT@IPRONLINE.COM>
Subject:      Number of obs in dataset
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Hi SAS-Ls,

I have this problem that when I wanna count the number of observations in a
dataset and the dataset is empty, instead of having zero (0), I have one
(1).   Then I red that with NOBS= , for certain SAS views, the SAS system
cannot determine the number of observations.  In these cases, the SAS system
sets the value of the NOBS= variable to the largest positive integer value
available on the host system (which means 1...)  <Rf.SAS Language p.485>.

This is my "simple" code:

...
data _null_;
 set dsname nobs=n;
 call symput('nbobs',n);
 stop;
run;

I know this looks pretty simple, and when I test only this (presuming dsname
has 0 obs.), it works.  But when including the same lines in my macro, it
doesn't work anymore.  Is anyone got this problem before?   Is there any
other way to get the number of obs. (like in SQL...)?...

Thanks for helping...