Ever had to work with data that had crazy column names, custom formats you didn’t have access to, or text columns sized way too big for the actual data they contained? Annoying, isn’t it?

Well, you’re not alone and, as it turns out, it’s not that hard to fix. Let’s take a peek at renaming, reformatting, relabeling and resizing columns in your data using PROC SQL and PROC DATASETS. PROC SQL could handle most of these tasks, but you can’t rename a column in SQL without creating a new copy of the table. PROC DATASETS can do it all, but the syntax can be trickier. When we resize a column, we're going to have to re-write the data anyway, so I'll use PROC SQL for resizing, and PROC DATASETS for everything else. For example, we have this existing table:

Year Make Model MSRP Invoice Engine Size (L)
2004 Acura MDX $36,945 $33,337 3.5
2004 Audi A4 1.8T 4dr $25,940 $23,508 1.8
2004 Buick Rainier $37,895 $34,357 4.2

With this descriptor portion:

Column Name Column Label Column Type Column Length Column Format
Year num 8
Make char 13
Model char 40
MSRP num 8 DOLLAR8.
Invoice num 8 DOLLAR8.
EngineSize Engine Size (L) num 8

I want to modify the table to use European formats for the numeric values, to rename the EngineSize column as Size leaving its label unchanged, and to add descriptive labels for MSRP and Invoice.

The general syntax for this in PROC DATASETS is:

PROC DATASETS LIBRARY=;
MODIFY sas-dataset <(options)>;
FORMAT variable-1 <format-1> <variable-2 <format-2> ...>;
LABEL variable-1=<'label-1' | ' '> <variable-2=<'label-2' | ' '> ...>;
RENAME variable-1=new-name-1 <variable-2=new-name-2 ...>;

After running this code:

proc datasets library=work nolist nodetails;
   modify cars;
      format MSRP eurox8. Invoice eurox8. EngineSize commax5.1;
      label MSRP="Sticker Price" Invoice="Wholesale Price" ;
      rename EngineSize=Size;
run; quit;

The data now looks like this:

Year Make Model Sticker Price Wholesale Price Engine Size
(L)
2004 Acura MDX €36.945 €33.337 3,5
2004 Audi A4 1.8T 4dr €25.940 €23.508 1,8
2004 Buick Rainier €37.895 €34.357 4,2

With this descriptor portion:

Column Name Column Label Column Type Column Length Column Format
Year num 8
Make char 13
Model char 40
MSRP Sticker Price num 8 EUROX8.
Invoice Wholesale Price num 8 EUROX8.
Size Engine Size (L) num 8 COMMAX5.1

In the report, the longest value in the Make column is 5 characters long but the table metadata shows a column width of 13 characters. I can shorten the Make column to 5 characters without truncating the values, making my table size smaller on disk and in memory.

PROC SQL with an ALTER TABLE statement and a MODIFY clause will change a table’s descriptor portion (metadata) for one or more columns. Changing the length of a column will automatically rewrite the data portion of the table, too. The syntax looks like this:

ALTER TABLE table-name MODIFY column-definition-1 <, column-definition-2, ..., column-definition-n>;

After running this code:

proc sql;
alter table work.cars
   modify Make char(5)
;
quit;

The data is still correct:

Year Make Model Sticker Price Wholesale Price Engine Size
(L)
2004 Acura MDX €36.945 €33.337 3,5
2004 Audi A4 1.8T 4dr €25.940 €23.508 1,8
2004 Buick Rainier €37.895 €34.357 4,2

And the column size is now smaller:

Column Name Column Label Column Type Column Length Column Format
Year num 8
Make char 5
Model char 40
MSRP Sticker Price num 8 EUROX8.
Invoice Wholesale Price num 8 EUROX8.
Size Engine Size (L) num 8 COMMAX5.1

Now, unless you want to write this type of code by hand every time you need it, you’ll want macros to do the work for you. And macros we’ve got! Check out my SAS tutorial on YouTube titled “Resize, Rename and Reformat Data with SAS Macro” for more details on how this works. The video is also embedded below. Links below the embedded video lead to the data and programs used in the video and to my personal macro trove on GitHub, including a macro that quickly strips labels, formats and informats from a data set.

Until next time, may the SAS be with you!

Mark

DOWNLOAD NOW | VIDEO DATA PACKAGE ON GITHUB GET MACROS NOW | MY MACRO STASH ON GITHUB
Share

About Author

SAS Jedi

Principal Technical Training Consultant

Mark Jordan (a.k.a. SAS Jedi) grew up in northeast Brazil as the son of Baptist missionaries. After 20 years as a US Navy submariner pursuing his passion for programming as a hobby, in 1994 he retired, turned his hobby into a dream job, and has been a SAS programmer ever since. Mark writes and teaches a broad spectrum of SAS programming classes, and his book, "Mastering the SAS® DS2 Procedure: Advanced Data Wrangling Techniques" is in its second edition. When he isn’t writing, teaching, or posting “Jedi SAS Tricks”, Mark enjoys playing with his grand and great-grandchildren, hanging out at the beach, and reading science fiction novels. His secret obsession is flying toys – kites, rockets, drones – and though he usually tries to convince Lori that they are for the grandkids, she isn't buying it. Mark lives in historic Williamsburg, VA with his wife, Lori, and Stella, their cat. To connect with Mark, check out his SAS Press Author page, follow him on Twitter @SASJedi or connect on Facebook or LinkedIn.

6 Comments

Leave A Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Back to Top