For the sake of comprehensiveness, here is a more complete list of supported data step syntaxes, which don't all yield the same result. data t; A=-1; B=. ; C1= A min B; C2= A max B; D1= A >< B; D2= A <> B; E1=smallest(1,A,B); E2=largest (1,A,B); F1=min(1,A,B); F2=max(1,A,B); run;