SortN and SortC call routines in SAS

[Datura]

These two call routines (not functions) came into existence since SAS9.0. They are used to sort the values of a list of variables passed to it. SortN is to sort numeric values, while SortC for character values. If the values belong to an array, then these routines effectively sort the values of the array.

Run below code in SAS to see how it works.

data A;
 input  Area $ province $ city $ A B C D  ;
 cards;
 South Henan Luoyang 20 33 69 58
 South Henan Zhengzhou 78 33 44 77 96
 East Henan Kaifeng   27 87 21 54
 West Henan Luoyang   64 68 37 93
 North Henan Kaifeng   54 67 19 78
 East Jiangsu Nanjing 45 47 84 65
 East Jiangsu Nanjing 68 74 39 82
 West Jiangsu Suzhou 100 39 58 71
 South . Xinxiang  49 87 69 39
 South . Xinxiang  30 20 50 60
 South . Kaifeng   23 11 58 69
 East Jiangsu . 21 33 59 67
 West Jiangsu Nanjing 100 . 500 .
 ;
run;
  
data S;
 set A;
 call sortn (A, B, C, D);
 put A= B= C= D=;
 put D= C= B= A=;
 put '===============================';
run;

Note: The sorts are always done into ascending order, but by specifying
the variables in reverse order, you can effectively sort in descending
order. For more information, please refer to my 2013 SAS Paper:

Horizontal Data Sorting and Insightful Reporting: A Useful SAS® Technique

https://support.sas.com/resources/papers/proceedings13/376-2013.pdf

• This discussion was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by  Datura.