Is there a way to detect when you've reached the last observation in a SAS DATA step?

Question

Is there a way to check how many observations are in a SAS data set at runtime OR to detect when you've reached the last observation in a DATA step? I can't seem to find anything on the web for this seemingly simple problem. Thanks!

Answer 1

In your DATA step, add an END= option to the SET statement.

END=variable

creates and names a temporary variable that contains an end-of-file indicator. The variable, which is initialized to zero, is set to 1 when SET reads the last observation of the last data set listed. This variable is not added to any new data set.

For example:

data file2;

set mylib.file1 end=EOF;

if EOF then do;

/* place end of file logic here */

end;

run;