Functions and CALL Routines

VARNUM Function

Returns the number of a variable's position in a SAS data set.

Category:

SAS File I/O

Syntax
Arguments
Details
Examples
See Also

Syntax

VARNUM(data-set-id,var-name)

Arguments

data-set-id: specifies the data set identifier that the OPEN function returns.
var-name: specifies the variable's name.

Details

VARNUM returns the number of a variable's position in a SAS data set, or 0 if the variable is not in the SAS data set. This is the same variable number that is next to the variable in the output from PROC CONTENTS.

Examples

This example obtains the number of a variable's position in the SAS data set CITY, given the name of the variable.

%let dsid=%sysfunc(open(city,i));
%let citynum=%sysfunc(varnum(&dsid,CITYNAME));
%let rc=%sysfunc(fetch(&dsid));
%let cityname=%sysfunc(getvarc
                      (&dsid,&citynum));

This example creates a data set that contains the name, type, format, informat, label, length, and position of the variables in SASUSER.HOUSES.

data vars;
   length name $ 8 type $ 1 
          format informat $ 10 label $ 40;
   drop dsid i num rc;
   dsid=open("sasuser.houses","i");
   num=attrn(dsid,"nvars");
   do i=1 to num;
      name=varname(dsid,i);
      type=vartype(dsid,i);
      format=varfmt(dsid,i);
      informat=varinfmt(dsid,i);
      label=varlabel(dsid,i);
      length=varlen(dsid,i);
      position=varnum(dsid,name);
      output;
   end;
   rc=close(dsid);
run;