BYSORTED System Option
Specifies whether observations in one or more data
sets are sorted in alphabetic or numeric order or are grouped in another
logical order.
| Valid in: |
Configuration file, SAS invocation, OPTIONS statement, SAS
System Options window
|
| Category: |
Input control: Data processing |
| PROC OPTIONS GROUP= |
INPUTCONTROL |
| Note: |
This option can be restricted by a site administrator. For more information,
see Restricted Options. |
Syntax
Syntax Description
- BYSORTED
-
specifies that observations
in a data set or data sets are sorted in alphabetic or numeric order.
Requirement:When you use the BYSORTED option, observations must be
ordered or indexed according to the values of BY variables.
Interaction:If both the BYSORTED system option and the NOTSORTED
statement option on a BY statement are specified, then the NOTSORTED
option in the BY statement takes precedence over the BYSORTED system
option.
Tip:If BYSORTED is specified, then SAS assumes that the data
set is ordered by the BY variable. BYSORTED should be used if the
data set is ordered by the BY variable for better performance.
- NOBYSORTED
-
specifies that observations
with the same BY value are grouped together but are not necessarily
sorted in alphabetic or numeric order.
Note:If a procedure ignores the NOTSORTED option in a BY statement,
then it ignores the NOBYSORTED system option also.
Tips:When the NOBYSORTED option is specified, you do not have
to specify NOTSORTED on every BY statement to access the data sets.
NOBYSORTED is useful if you have data that falls into
other logical groupings such as chronological order or linguistic
order. NOBYSORTED allows BY processing to continue without failure
when a data set is not actually sorted in alphabetic or numeric order.
Details
The requirement for
ordering or indexing observations according to the values of BY variables
is suspended for BY-group processing when you use the NOBYSORTED option.
By default, BY-group processing requires that your data be sorted
in alphabetic or numeric order. If your data is grouped in any other
way but alphabetic or numeric, then you must use the NOBYSORTED option
to allow BY-processing to continue without failure. For more information
about BY-group processing, see
BY-Group Processing in the DATA Step in SAS Language Reference: Concepts
See Also
Statements:
NOTSORTED option, NOTSORTED in
SAS Statements: Reference