DIM Function

Returns the number of elements in an array.

Category:

Array

Syntax

DIM<n> (array-name)

DIM(array-name,bound-n)

Required Arguments

array-name

specifies the name of an array that was previously defined in the same DATA step. This argument cannot be a constant, variable, or expression.

bound-n

is a numeric constant, variable, or expression that specifies the dimension, in a multidimensional array, for which you want to know the number of elements. Use bound-n only when n is not specified.

Optional Argument

n

specifies the dimension, in a multidimensional array, for which you want to know the number of elements. If no n value is specified, the DIM function returns the number of elements in the first dimension of the array.

Details

The DIM function returns the number of elements in a one-dimensional array or the number of elements in a specified dimension of a multidimensional array when the lower bound of the dimension is 1. Use DIM in array processing to avoid changing the upper bound of an iterative DO group each time you change the number of array elements.

Comparisons

DIM always returns a total count of the number of elements in an array dimension.
HBOUND returns the literal value of the upper bound of an array dimension.

Note: This distinction is important when the lower bound of an array dimension has a value other than 1 and the upper bound has a value other than the total number of elements in the array dimension.

Examples

Example 1: One-dimensional Array

In this example, DIM returns a value of 5. Therefore, SAS repeats the statements in the DO loop five times.

   array big{5} weight sex height state city;
   do i=1 to dim(big);
     more SAS statements;
   end;

Example 2: Multidimensional Array

This example shows two ways of specifying the DIM function for multidimensional arrays. Both methods return the same value for DIM, as shown in the table that follows the SAS code example.

   array mult{5,10,2} mult1-mult100;

Syntax	Alternative Syntax	Value
DIM(MULT)	DIM(MULT,1)	5
DIM2(MULT)	DIM(MULT,2)	10
DIM3(MULT)	DIM(MULT,3)	2