The DISTANCE Procedure

Standardization versus No Standardization

You can replace the missing values with or without standardization. Missing values are replaced after standardization by specifying either the REPLACE option in the PROC DISTANCE statement or the MISSING= option in the VAR statement.

To replace missing values without standardization, use the following two options:

• the NOSTD option in the PROC DISTANCE statement. The NOSTD option suppresses standardization but still replaces the missing values with the location of the method or the numeric value specified in the MISSING= option in the VAR statement.

• the REPONLY option in the PROC DISTANCE statement. PROC DISTANCE replaces missing values with the location of the standardization method or with the numeric value specified in the MISSING= option in the VAR statement. This approach assumes that standardization is not mandatory (see the section Standardization).

Eliminating Observations with Missing Values

If you specify the NOMISS option, PROC DISTANCE omits observations with any missing values in the analyzed variables from computation of the location and scale measures.

Distance Measures

If you specify the NOMISS option, PROC DISTANCE generates missing distance for observations with missing values. If the NOMISS option is not specified, the sum of total weights, no matter if an observation is missing or not, is incorporated into the computation of some of the proximity measures. See the section Details: DISTANCE Procedure for the formulas and descriptions.