CODEWITHSUNDEEP
sas
aola
aola

Reputation: 87

Finding the largest values in SAS (Top 3)

i am new in SAS and I have a little problem. I try to choose 3. largest value from substring in names of files in directory. why i can't do that?

parent=directory

data files_and_folders;
 keep num;
    did=dopen("parent");
    if dnum(did)>3 then do;
        do i=1 to dnum(did);
        names=int(substr(dread(did,i),9,8));
        num=largest(3,names);
        output;
end;
end;
output;
run;

returns
names:
20160322
20160323
20160324
20160325
20160325

but returns null value for num
thanks for help

Upvotes: 0

Views: 811

Answers (1)

Jetzler
Jetzler

Reputation: 797

Your variable names is a single number. largest gives you the largest value in a list of values. e.g. 

k=1
n=largest(k, 1, 2, 3, 4);

result: n = 4

 k=2
 n=largest(k, 1, 2, 3, 4);

result: n = 3

You are trying to get the third largest value out of a list of one. That results in a missing.

You need to output the whole file. Sort it by descending names. Then limit it to the first three observations e.g. by obs=3 in a set statement

Upvotes: 1

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