The SORT Procedure

Example 3: Maintaining the Relative Order of Observations in Each BY Group

Procedure features:

PROC SORT statement option:

EQUALS | NOEQUALS

Other features:

PROC PRINT

This example

sorts the observations by the value of the first variable
maintains the relative order with the EQUALS option
does not maintain the relative order with the NOEQUALS option.

Program

options nodate pageno=1 linesize=80 pagesize=60;

data insurance;
   input YearsWorked 1 InsuranceID 3-5;
   datalines;
5 421
5 336
1 209
1 564
3 711
3 343
4 212
4 616
;

proc sort data=insurance out=byyears1 equals;

   by yearsworked;
run;

proc print data=byyears1;

   var yearsworked insuranceid;

   title 'Sort with EQUALS';
run;

proc sort data=insurance out=byyears2 noequals;

   by yearsworked;
run;

proc print data=byyears2;

   var yearsworked insuranceid;

   title 'Sort with NOEQUALS';
run;

Output

                                Sort with EQUALS                                       1

                                   Years    Insurance
                           Obs    Worked        ID

                            1        1         209   
                            2        1         564   
                            3        3         711   
                            4        3         343   
                            5        4         212   
                            6        4         616   
                            7        5         421   
                            8        5         336

                               Sort with NOEQUALS                              2

                                   Years    Insurance
                           Obs    Worked        ID

                            1        1         209   
                            2        1         564   
                            3        3         343   
                            4        3         711   
                            5        4         212   
                            6        4         616   
                            7        5         421   
                            8        5         336

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