CODEWITHSUNDEEP
sasproc-sql
hyg17
hyg17

Reputation: 237

SAS: How to create a table that lists the variable names of another table

I am starting out with SAS and PROC SQL, and I want to do a very simple task as described below but am having trouble.

data test;
input x_ray y_chromosome z_sword;
cards;
1 2 3
4 5 6
4 7 8
7 8 9
7 9 10
7 10 11
;

In the table test we have three variables, x_ray, y_chromosome, and z_sword.

My goal is to make another table, let's say, result, that looks like this.

data result;
input name $;
cards;
x_ray
y_chromosome
z_sword
;

I looked up ways to do this online, but all the methods are very well beyond my understanding and I simply do not believe that such a simple process has to be so complicated.

May I have some help, please?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1747

Answers (2)

whymath
whymath

Reputation: 1394

I cannot find any shorter and simpler answer than @Tom, just another two ways for reference.
Use dictionary table:

proc sql;
  create table result as select name from sashelp.vcolumn where libname='WORK' and memname='TEST';
quit;

or query them by I/O functions:

data result;
  rc = open('work.test');
  if rc then do;
    do i = 1 to attrn(rc,'nvars');
      name = varname(rc,i);
      output;
    end;
  rc = close(rc);
  end;
run;

Upvotes: 0

Tom
Tom

Reputation: 51621

Use PROC CONTENTS.

proc contents data=test noprint out=result;
run;

If you only want the variable names and not the other information you can use dataset option to limit the variables kept in the RESULT dataset.

proc contents data=test noprint out=result(keep=name) ;
run;

Upvotes: 3

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