Jen ,

Is there a Date variable that we need to be aware off. Otherwise your before and after jobs that you say you want are arbitrary.

Toby Dunn

From: Jen Sabatier <plessthanpointohfive@GMAIL.COM> Reply-To: Jen Sabatier <plessthanpointohfive@GMAIL.COM> To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: finding minimum value in most efficient manner Date: Fri, 7 Jul 2006 12:44:01 -0400

Hello, all,

I have a dataset of individual's work histories. So, there is are columns for id, jobtitle, months.

data hx; input id jobtitle $ months; datalines; 1 Floater 3 1 Operator 1 1 Crew 8 1 Manager 30 2 Operator 5 2 Crew 2 3 Helper 1 4 Helper 10 4 Operator 56 4 Supervisor 22 4 Manager 10 . . . ;

So, we have unequal lengths to the actual work history. Some people held several jobs, some just a few, and some only one.

What I need to do is locate the shortest job held for each person for people who held more than one job, flag it and the jobs before and/or after it. I will need to examine the previous and/or prior job along with the shortest job. If a person held only one job then I need to flag them seperately.

I've tried to do this with an array but I can't make it work. I know it must be simple.

Hope someone can help!