In the DATASETS procedure and
the DATA step MERGE and SET statements, data set lists provide a quick
way to reference existing groups of data sets. These data set lists
can be numbered range lists or colon (name prefix) lists.
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Numbered range lists require
you to have a series of data sets with the same name, except for the
last character or characters, which are consecutive numbers. In a
numbered range list, you can begin with any number and end with any
number. For example, the following two lists refer to the same data
sets:
sales1 sales2 sales3 sales4
sales1–sales4
Note: If the numeric suffix of
the first data set name contains leading zeros, the number of digits
in the numeric suffix of the first and last data set name must be
greater than or equal to the number of digits in the first data set
name. Otherwise, an error occurs. For example, the data set lists
sales001–sales99 and
sales01–sales9 cause an error to
occur. The data set list
sales001–sales999 is
valid. If the numeric suffix of the first data set name does not contain
leading zeros, then the number of digits in the numeric suffix of
the first and last data set names does not have to be equal. For example,
the data set list
sales1–sales999 is
valid.
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Colon (name prefix) lists require
you to have a series of data sets with the same starting character
or characters. For example, the following two lists refer to the same
data sets:
abc:
abc1 abc2 abcr abcx
In the DATASETS procedure,
data set lists can be used with the following statements:
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the variables that are specified
in MODIFY SORTEDBY
For more information
about how data set lists can be used in the DATA step, see the
MERGE Statement in SAS Statements: Reference and the SET Statement in SAS Statements: Reference.