How to Create or Modify a Variable in SAS Programming?

This will help you to create or modify a variable. It is common to define a new variable based on the existing variable.

Let’s create a dataset
In the code below, we are creating a dataset named as Example1 which is going to store on WORK(temporary) library. In this dataset, there would be a variable called OldRate which contains a numeric value. The RUN statement is defined to close the dataset program.

DATA Example1;
OldRate=42;
RUN;

Output:

1. Creating a numeric variable

   You can create variables using the form: variable = expression;

   Suppose you are asked to create a new variable NewRate, in the existing SAS data set Example1. Both variables are numeric. The variable NewRate is twice of OldRate.

   DATA Example1;
   SET Example1;
   NewRate=3*OldRate;
   RUN;

   Output:
   

   If you are asked to store a new variable NewRate on a new dataset, you can create it using DATA statement.

   DATA Readin;
   SET Example1;
   NewRate=3*OldRate;
   RUN;

   In above case, the dataset READIN was created.

2. Creating a character variable

   In the dataset Example1, let’s create a character variable as Type. The character value for the set is set ‘GeeksforGeeks’.

   The quote marks need to be entered around the character variable.

   DATA Example1;
   SET Example1;
   Type = 'GeeksforGeeks';
   RUN;

   Output:
   

   Since Type is a character variable, so the value entered should in quotes. It can be either single or double quotes.

3. Creating or Modifying a variable

   Suppose the value of OldRate is increased by 8 units and you need to calculate the relative change in rate. In this case, we are modifying the existing variable OldRate so we will add 8 to OldRate. later we calculate the percentage change between old and new rate.

   DATA Readin;
   SET Example1;
   OldRate=8 + OldRate;
   NewRate=OldRate*3;
   Change= ((NewRate-OldRate)/ OldRate);
   Format Change Percent10.0;
   RUN;

   Output:
   

   The FORMAT statement is used to display the changed value in percentage format.