Date:         Fri, 19 Nov 2004 11:34:49 -0700
Reply-To:     Jack Hamilton <JackHamilton@FIRSTHEALTH.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Jack Hamilton <JackHamilton@FIRSTHEALTH.COM>
Subject:      Re: Use of Variable With 21 Characters
Comments: To: Michael.F.Murphy@KP.ORG
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

One reason to keep the current scheme is that you can code

  proc sql;
      select  *
      from     mydata.stuff
      where  membship in (select membship from mydata.otherstuff);
   quit;

but SAS, unlike some data base systems, does not support the very
useful

  proc sql;
      select  *
      from     mydata.stuff
      where  (group, subgroup, acct, eff_da) in (select group,
subgroup, acct, eff_da from mydata.otherstuff);
   quit;

That's a somewhat trivial example, since it's easy in this case to just
code a join, but in some other circumstances that's not possible.

Another reason to keep the current scheme is that it's easy to use a
single value for format-based lookups, but more difficult for multiple
values.

Esthetically, though (and I think that esthetics are very important in
programming), it's much better to keep four values in four variables.





--
JackHamilton@FirstHealth.com
Manager, Technical Development
Metrics Department, First Health
West Sacramento, California USA

>>> "Michael F. Murphy" <Michael.F.Murphy@KP.ORG> 11/19/2004 10:15 AM
>>>
Dear SAS-L'ers

I'm reviewing a membership system that includes a variable
called "Membship", created in the days when variable names could
not be
more than 8 characters long.

Membship is a concatination of four variables:
Group number converted to a 5-character string
Subgroup number converted to a 3-character string
Family Account number converted to an 8-character string
Effective date of health care coverage converted to a 5-character
string.

Hence Membship is a 21 character string.

We are trying to decide whether to keep this variable or replace it
with
the following four numeric variables: Group, Subgroup, Family_Acct,
and
Eff_Date. I am having trouble coming up with reasons for keeping
Membship,
but there may be reasons for keeping it. Can anyone think of reasons
for
keeping this 21-character variable instead of the four numeric
variables?

Thanks.


"MMS <firsthealth.com>" made the following annotations.
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