Date:         Mon, 19 Jul 2004 16:05:03 +0200
Reply-To:     Zio Fester <ziofester2@HOTMAIL.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Zio Fester <ziofester2@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: creating a scalar variable

In article <446DDE75CFC7E1438061462F85557B0F027E6C68
@remail2.westat.com>, HERMANS1@WESTAT.COM says...
> Zio:
> I hope that your instructor doesn't subscribe to SAS-L!

Please forgive my ignorance, but what does that happen to be?

> Whatever his or her
> skill level, it does turn out that SAS, like many other so-called 'database
> programming languages', operates on actual or virtual tables. A table can
> degenerate to a one-column, one-row cell that has many of the properties of
> a scalar. More typically, a database programmer combines tabular datasets to
> produce solutions to programming problems.

Does this mean that SAS can only "think" row by row and that there's no
way to create a scalar variable (or a 1x1 matrix...) accessible from any
part of my code?

> It takes a while to learn how to combine tabular datasets effectively. Once
> you learn how, you will be able to do more in less time and with fewer
> errors.
> Sig