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sasdo-loops

CAT vs CATS in data step do loop

Why does the code below work (&ds is 12345678910), but when I change cats to cat, &ds is just blank? I would expect changing cats to cat would mean &ds is 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10.

data new;
  length ds $500;
  ds = "";
  do i = 1 to 10;
    ds = cats(ds, i, " ");
  end;
  call symputx('ds', ds);
run;
%put &ds;
Solution

  • The function cat() will not trim the values so if you concatenate anything to DS and try to store it back into DS whatever you added is not stored because there is no room for it.

    It appears you actually want the catx() function.

    ds = catx(' ',ds, i);