SAS: Looping through an array with DO OVER

A “legacy” programmer can get the job done, but not always in the most efficient way.

No one ever sends the “legacy” guys to training.

Hence this blog, as I attempt to record new (to me) tricks this old dog has learned.

Here’s one: using “do over” to loop through a SAS array.

Source code:

* demonstrate do over for looping through array ;

data work.my_array;

prime1 = 2; prime2 = 3; prime3 = 5; prime4 = 7; prime5 = 11;

run;

data _null_;

set work.my_array;

array primes prime1-prime5;

sum = 0;

do over primes;

     put primes=;

     sum = sum + primes;

end;

put sum=;

run;

Log:

1    * demonstrate do over for looping through array ;

2

3    data work.my_array;

4    prime1 = 2; prime2 = 3; prime3 = 5; prime4 = 7; prime5 = 11;

5    run;

NOTE: The data set WORK.MY_ARRAY has 1 observations and 5 variables.

NOTE: DATA statement used (Total process time):

      real time           0.04 seconds

      cpu time            0.04 seconds

6

7    data _null_;

8    set work.my_array;

9    array primes prime1-prime5;

10   sum = 0;

11   do over primes;

12       put primes=;

13       sum = sum + primes;

14   end;

15   put sum=;

16   run;

prime1=2

prime2=3

prime3=5

prime4=7

prime5=11

sum=28

NOTE: There were 1 observations read from the data set WORK.MY_ARRAY.

NOTE: DATA statement used (Total process time):

      real time           0.05 seconds

      cpu time            0.06 seconds