Date:         Tue, 1 Jul 2008 13:28:17 -0500
Reply-To:     Mary <mlhoward@avalon.net>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Mary <mlhoward@AVALON.NET>
Subject:      Proc SQL- use of "as" brings along the old label!
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

I just ran across an unexpected result in Proc SQL; if I attempt to use the "as" to create a new name, then if there is a label attached to it, it retains the old label!  Example:

data test;

informat old_name $20.;

infile cards;

input old_name $;

label old_name= 'old_name';

cards;

name1

name2

name3

;

proc sql;

create table newtest as

select old_name as new_name

from test;

quit;

run;

In this case the variable "newname" in newtest has the label "old_name".   It might be something to watch out for, especially since ODS does assign labels to many of its variables automatically.  At first in looking at the data I was thinking that it was not changing the name for me, but upon looking at the attributes, it was changing the name, but when I looked at the data set I was looking at the old label!  Thus the "as" keyword in Proc SQL is behaving more like a rename than a computed new variable. 



-Mary