The UNIVARIATE Procedure

identifies the output data set. If SAS-data-set does not exist, PROC UNIVARIATE creates it. If you omit OUT=, the data set is named DATAn, where n is the smallest integer that makes the name unique.

requests distribution-free confidence limits for percentiles that are requested with the PCTLPTS= option. In other words, no specific parametric distribution such as the normal is assumed for the data. PROC UNIVARIATE uses order statistics (ranks) to compute the confidence limits as described by Hahn and Meeker (1991). This option does not apply if you use a WEIGHT statement. You can specify the following cipctl-options:

Note: See the entries for the PCTLPTS=, PCTLPRE=, and PCTLNAME= options for a detailed description of how variable names are created using prefixes, percentile values, and suffixes.

requests confidence limits based on the assumption that the data are normally distributed for percentiles that are requested with the PCTLPTS= option. The computational method is described in Section 4.4.1 of Hahn and Meeker (1991) and uses the noncentral t distribution as given by Odeh and Owen (1980). This option does not apply if you use a WEIGHT statement. You can specify the following cipctl-options:

Note: See the entries for the PCTLPTS=, PCTLPRE=, and PCTLNAME= options for a detailed description of how variable names are created using prefixes, percentile values, and suffixes.

specifies the order in which variables that you request with the PCTLPTS= option are added to the OUT= data set when the VAR statement lists more than one analysis variable. By default (or if you specify PCTLGROUP=BYSTAT), all variables that are associated with a percentile value are created consecutively. If you specify PCTLGROUP=BYVAR, all variables that are associated with an analysis variable are created consecutively.

Consider the following statements:

proc univariate data=Score;
   var PreTest PostTest;
   output out=ByStat pctlpts=20 40 pctlpre=Pre_ Post_;
   output out=ByVar pctlgroup=byvar pctlpts=20 40 pctlpre=Pre_ Post_;
run;

The order of variables in the data set ByStat is Pre_20, Post_20, Pre_40, Post_40. The order of variables in the data set ByVar is Pre_20, Pre_40, Post_20, Post_40.

specifies one or more suffixes to create the names for the variables that contain the PCTLPTS= percentiles. PROC UNIVARIATE creates a variable name by combining the PCTLPRE= value and suffix name. Because the suffix names are associated with the percentiles that are requested, list the suffix names in the same order as the PCTLPTS= percentiles. If you specify n suffixes with the PCTLNAME= option and m percentile values with the PCTLPTS= option where , the suffixes are used to name the first n percentiles and the default names are used for the remaining percentiles. For example, consider the following statements:

proc univariate;
   var Length Width Height;
   output pctlpts  = 20 40
          pctlpre  = pl pw ph
          pctlname = twenty;
run;

The value twenty in the PCTLNAME= option is used for only the first percentile in the PCTLPTS= list. This suffix is appended to the values in the PCTLPRE= option to generate the new variable names pltwenty, pwtwenty, and phtwenty, which contain the 20th percentiles for Length, Width, and Height, respectively. Because a second PCTLNAME= suffix is not specified, variable names for the 40th percentiles for Length, Width, and Height are generated using the prefixes and percentile values. Thus, the output data set contains the variables pltwenty, pl40, pwtwenty, pw40, phtwenty, and ph40.

You must specify PCTLPRE= to supply prefix names for the variables that contain the PCTLPTS= percentiles.

If the number of PCTLNAME= values is fewer than the number of percentiles or if you omit PCTLNAME=, PROC UNIVARIATE uses the percentile as the suffix to create the name of the variable that contains the percentile. For an integer percentile, PROC UNIVARIATE uses the percentile. Otherwise, PROC UNIVARIATE truncates decimal values of percentiles to two decimal places and replaces the decimal point with an underscore.

If either the prefix and suffix name combination or the prefix and percentile name combination is longer than 32 characters, PROC UNIVARIATE truncates the prefix name so that the variable name is 32 characters.

specifies the number of decimal places in percentile values that are incorporated into percentile variable names. The default value is 2. For example, the following statements create two output data sets, each containing one percentile variable. The variable in data set short is named pwid85_12, while the one in data set long is named pwid85_125.

proc univariate;
   var width;
   output out=short pctlpts=85.125 pctlpre=pwid;
   output out=long  pctlpts=85.125 pctlpre=pwid pctlndec=3;
run;

specifies one or more prefixes to create the variable names for the variables that contain the PCTLPTS= percentiles. To save the same percentiles for more than one analysis variable, specify a list of prefixes. The order of the prefixes corresponds to the order of the analysis variables in the VAR statement. The PCTLPRE= and PCTLPTS= options must be used together.

The procedure generates new variable names by using the prefix and the percentile values. If the specified percentile is an integer, the variable name is simply the prefix followed by the value. If the specified value is not an integer, an underscore replaces the decimal point in the variable name, and decimal values are truncated to one decimal place. For example, the following statements create the variables pwid20, pwid33_3, pwid66_6, and pwid80 for the 20th, 33.33rd, 66.67th, and 80th percentiles of Width, respectively:

proc univariate noprint;
   var Width;
   output pctlpts=20 33.33 66.67 80 pctlpre=pwid;
run;

If you request percentiles for more than one variable, you should list prefixes in the same order in which the variables appear in the VAR statement. If combining the prefix and percentile value results in a name longer than 32 characters, the prefix is truncated so that the variable name is 32 characters.

specifies one or more percentiles that are not automatically computed by the UNIVARIATE procedure. The PCTLPRE= and PCTLPTS= options must be used together. You can specify percentiles with an expression of the form start TO stop BY increment where start is a starting number, stop is an ending number, and increment is a number to increment by. The PCTLPTS= option generates additional percentiles and outputs them to a data set. These additional percentiles are not printed.

To compute the 50th, 95th, 97.5th, and 100th percentiles, submit the statement

output pctlpre=P_ pctlpts=50,95 to 100 by 2.5;

PROC UNIVARIATE computes the requested percentiles based on the method that you specify with the PCTLDEF= option in the PROC UNIVARIATE statement. You must use PCTLPRE=, and optionally PCTLNAME=, to specify variable names for the percentiles. For example, the following statements create an output data set named Pctls that contains the 20th and 40th percentiles of the analysis variables PreTest and PostTest:

proc univariate data=Score;
   var PreTest PostTest;
   output out=Pctls pctlpts=20 40 pctlpre=PreTest_ PostTest_
              pctlname=P20 P40;
run;

PROC UNIVARIATE saves the 20th and 40th percentiles for PreTest and PostTest in the variables PreTest_P20, PostTest_P20, PreTest_P40, and PostTest_P40.