I wrote a Global Forum paper back in 2010 entitled "New Dogs and Old Tricks Part II: Using the SELECT statement and FLAGS to Streamline your Code" (paper 087-2010) which ALSO mentions using booleans in combination with the SELECT statement. I should also mention that the "otherwise" clause has saved my bacon on a number of occasions when "dirty data" (not to be confused with the Jennifer Grey - Patrick Swayze movie) has come my way. Here is a link to the paper: http://support.sas.com/resources/papers/proceedings10/087-2010.pdf