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Can anyone please tell me how to select only numeric or character variables?

flag	asked Oct 20 at 16:17 Moderator♦♦ 218●7

Moderator · Accepted Answer · 2009-10-20 21:51:35Z UTC

If you are trying to create a dataset selecting only the variables that are character (or numeric) you can use the keep statement with char or numeric respectively. Here's an example with the SAS class dataset:

data work.numeric_only;
set sashelp.class(keep=_numeric_);
run;

data work.char_only;
set sashelp.class(keep=_char_);
run;

Moderator · Answer 2 · 2009-10-21 02:19:52Z UTC

If you want to know whether the variable itself is a numeric or character type you can use the VARTYPE(data-set-id,var-num) function. The var-num is the number of the variable as shown in the PROC CONTENTS for that dataset.

c.f. http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/lrdict/62618/HTML/default/a000148439.htm ; it has a fuller explanation and some code examples.

If you are trying do determine whether the content of the variable for a particular observation is numeric or character you can use the VTYPE(var) function. I can't give the reference link because I am a new user to runsumbit.

Run;

Selecting just Numeric or Character variables?

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2 Answers