Brent,

Post your log to SAS-L. The code you provided doesn't result in the error you indicated.

Art -------- On Thu, 19 Mar 2009 14:13:05 -0700, FPAStatman <brentvtimothy@GMAIL.COM> wrote:

>I have run into an interesting error, which I cannot figure out how to >solve. I will provide an example of what I am doing below: > >DATA a; >INPUT name $ id; >CARDS; >northwest 1 >northeast 2 >southwest 1 >southeast 2 >; >DATA b; >INPUT name $ input; >CARDS; >northwest 5 >southwest 6 >; >PROC SORT data=a; >BY name; >PROC SORT data=b; >BY name; > >DATA b; >MERGE b a; >BY name; > >This is a simplification of the process, but basically the same. I >then get an error saying: >ERROR: BY variables are not properly sorted on the dataset user.a. > >Why are they not properly sorted after a sort statement? There is no >error in the sort statment, and it says that SAS sort was used. > >Thanks