Date:         Mon, 11 Jul 2005 17:26:34 -0400
Reply-To:     Ed Heaton <EdHeaton@WESTAT.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Ed Heaton <EdHeaton@WESTAT.COM>
Subject:      Re: How to simplify a comparison -
Comments: To: "Choate, Paul@DDS" <pchoate@DDS.CA.GOV>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Paul,

Consider the following.

Data _null_ ;
    Input a $ w $ ;
    Put (_all_)(=) @ ;
    If ( a eq w ne " " )
        then put " are the same." ;
        Else put ;
Cards4 ;
1 2
3 3
a w
a a
w w
a .
. w
;;;;

So,

    if (a=w & a~='') or (b=x & b~='') or (c=y & c~='') or (d=z & d~='');

becomes

    if (a=w~=' ') or (b=x~=' ') or (c=y~=' ') or (d=z~=' ') ;

I can't help much with

    if (a=b|a=c) & a~='';


Ed

Edward Heaton, SAS Senior Systems Analyst,
Westat (An Employee-Owned Research Corporation),
1600 Research Boulevard, RW-3541, Rockville, MD 20850-3195
Voice: (301) 610-4818                  Fax: (301) 610-5128
mailto:EdHeaton@Westat.com             http://www.Westat.com


-----Original Message-----
From: owner-sas-l@listserv.uga.edu [mailto:owner-sas-l@listserv.uga.edu] On Behalf Of Choate, Paul@DDS
Sent: Monday, July 11, 2005 1:07 PM
To: SAS List (SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU)
Subject: How to simplify a comparison -


Good morning SAS aficionados -


I just posted some code to a thread that contains a headache I often have:

    if (a=w & a~='') or (b=x & b~='') or (c=y & c~='') or (d=z & d~='');

or similarly:

    if (a=b|a=c) & a~='';

The issue is that I want to check for non-missing equivalence between two (or more) variables simultaneously.  Any comments on how one might simplify this?

tia

Paul Choate
DDS Data Extraction
(916) 654-2160