Date: Thu, 19 Feb 2004 13:40:40 +0000
Reply-To: John Whittington <John.W@MEDISCIENCE.CO.UK>
Sender: "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From: John Whittington <John.W@MEDISCIENCE.CO.UK>
Subject: Re: Ordering variables
In-Reply-To: <E1AtFq4-0003Tl-00@coumxnn01.netbenefit.co.uk>
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At 19:44 17/02/04 -0500, Jimmy Greeley wrote:
>Of course I asked my client, and got what I thought was an unsatisfactory
>answer: "because that's what I want".
>So sue me for being curious beyond his answer -- curious enough to join a
>list I heard was friendly and helpful. Privately, I was advised that this is
>actually a frequently asked question. So I remain surprised not to get a
>little more info in an answer. I'll search the archives and leave you
>fine folk alone.
HOW to order, or 're-order', SAS variables is an extremely frequently asked
question here, as you will see from the archives. WHY to order/re-order
variables is rarely asked; those who ask the 'how' question presumably
have their individual reasons for 'why', otherwise they wouldn't be asking
the question. In fact, each time the 'how' FAQ is asked, you can almost
guarantee that at least one person will respond asking why the person wants
to do it, arguing that it is rarely, if ever, 'necessary' - and those
'secondary why' questions are very rarely answered by the person asking
about the 'how'.
Whilst working totally within SAS, there is virtually never an absolute
'need' to re-order. Virtually all PROCs which create output offer
provision to dictate the variable order (e.g. with a VAR
statement). However, if one is going to repeatedly utilise the same
dataset, it is, to my mind, more convenient to just re-order the variables
in that dataset 'once and for all', rather than to have to specify the
desired variable order (even if only with a macro variable) each and every
time one uses it. There are then those issues of looking at SAS datasets
in viewers, exporting to other application etc. where it is convenient to
have a defined variable order - and it is also nice to have variables in a
'logical' order if one is going to be handing the datasets over to others
who don't necessarily know what the variables are going to be.
That's how I see it, anyway.
Kind Regards,
John
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