var_numcast

Cast a given character variable into a numeric variable where numbers are attributed in sequence depending on the frequency of the corresponding category in the character variable.

%var_numcast(idsn, var, odsn=, suff=_new, ilib=WORK, olib=WORK);

Arguments

• idsn : input reference dataset, whose variable shall be cast;
• var : name of the character variable that should be cast, i.e. all categories in var will be converted into numbers;
• suff : (option) suffix to be added to the name of the cast variable; default: suff=_new, i.e. the variable a in idsn will be renamed as a_new;
• odsn : (option) name of the output dataset; default: odsn=idsn so that the input dataset is in practice updated;
• ilib : (option) name of the input library; by default: empty, i.e. WORK is used.

Returns

• odsn : output dataset (stored in the olib library), containing the exact same data than idsn, plus an additional new variable (obtained as a concatenation of the original var name and suff) where all the categories of the variable defined by var are cast into a numeric variable;
• olib : (option) name of the output library; by default: empty, and the value of ilib is used.

Examples

Let us consider test dataset #31 in WORKing directory:

geo	value	unit
BE	0	EUR
AT	0.1	EUR
BG	0.2	NAC
LU	0.3	EUR
FR	0.4	NAC
IT	0.5	EUR

then the call to the macros:

%_dstest31;
%var_numcast(_dstest31, unit);

will return the updated dataset below:

geo	value	unit	unit_new
BE	0	EUR	1
AT	0.1	EUR	1
BG	0.2	NAC	2
LU	0.3	EUR	1
FR	0.4	NAC	2
IT	0.5	EUR	1

Run macro %_example_var_numcast for more examples.

Note

The values in the new variable are attributed in sequential order, from the most to the least frequent categories in var.

Reference

Wright, W.L. (2007): "Creating a format from raw data or a SAS dataset".

See also

%var_info, %var_rename, %digits.