> From: Nick .

> I have a SAS (V8.2) data set with, say, 5 fields (in my data > set it has like 500 fields) called VAR1, VAR2,..., VAR5. > I have an Excel data set that looks like this: > A B > VAR1 Age > VAR2 Income > VAR3 Gender > VAR4 Num_Accts > VAR5 Zip_Code > > I need to go to my SAS data set above and replace the field > names VAR1,...,VAR5 with > Age, Income, Gender, Num_Accts, Zip_Code respectively. (A and > B are the column headings in Excel sheet, not of importance, > I guess.) Thanks.

as always: Why do you want to do this?

and then next Q: do you want to rename or add labels?

*rename; Data New; set Old(rename = (Var1 = Age ... ) );

PROC SQL; select trim(OldName) !! ' = ' !! trim(NewName) into :List separated by ' ' from ListOfNames ;quit;

Data New; set Old(rename = (&List.));

... hm 500 variables? probably a lot of rows, too, eh?! so use proc DataSets to do the rename: just change the data structure, not read the entire data set.

you can use a similar list processing trick to add labels: label Var1 = 'Age' ...;

watch those single and double quotes when you build :List

PROC SQL; select trim(OldName) !! " = '" !! trim(NewName) !! "'" ... etc.

Ron Fehd the macro maven CDC Atlanta GA USA RJF2 at cdc dot gov