Date:         Mon, 13 Jan 1997 16:26:56 +0000
Reply-To:     John Whittington <johnw@MAG-NET.CO.UK>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>
From:         John Whittington <johnw@MAG-NET.CO.UK>
Subject:      Re: Changing the order of vars in a dataset
Comments: To: Thomas Kalfas <kalfast@PPRD.ABBOTT.COM>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

On Mon, 13 Jan 1997, Thomas Kalfas <kalfast@PPRD.ABBOTT.COM> wrote (in part):
 
>As for the macro-ization, when it comes down to it, I guess it is due to the
>fact that the RETAIN statement is being used to do something that it was not
>really intended to do and therefore, being somewhat skeptical about doing such
>things, want to guard against potential misuse (and there does seem to be
>potential in the sense that we don't know for certain if there are situations
>which in fact the RETAIN would cause unexpected effects).
 
Fair enough, but as I have been saying, I really cannot conceive of any
situation in which RETAIN could conceivably cause any problems in relation
to re-ordering variables from an existing dataset.  If you want a 'general
proof' it is probably the fact that any variables coming from a SET (or
MERGE etc.) statement are *implicitly* RETAINed, anyway - so one in fact is
not adding any functionality (apart from affecting variable order) by using
an explicit RETAIN.
 
Regards
 
John
 
-----------------------------------------------------------
Dr John Whittington,        Voice:      +44 1296 730225
Mediscience Services        Fax:        +44 1296 738893
Twyford Manor, Twyford,     E-mail:     johnw@mag-net.co.uk
Buckingham  MK18 4EL, UK    CompuServe: 100517,3677
-----------------------------------------------------------