How to delete blank observations in a data set in SAS?

Question

I want to delete ALL blank observations from a data set. I only know how to get rid of blanks from one variable: data a; set data(where=(var1 ne .)) ; run; Here I set a new data set without the blanks from var1. But how to do it, when I want to get rid of ALL the blanks in the whole data set? Thanks in advance for your answers.

Answer 1

/* create test data */

data raa;

input city $ st $ name $ sex $ age;

datalines;

Boston MA George M 59

Atlanta GA Jan F 62

Chicago IL Daniel M 27

;

run;

data blank;

city=''; st=' '; name=''; sex=' '; age=.; output;

city=''; st='CA'; name=''; sex=' '; age=.; output;

city=''; st=' '; name=''; sex=' '; age=30; output;

city=''; st=' '; name=''; sex='M'; age=.; output;

run;

data raa;

set raa blank;

run;

/* remove records with all blank/missing value fields */

data _null_;

set sashelp.vcolumn end=eof;

where libname = 'WORK' and memname = 'RAA';

x+1;

call symputx('field'||left(_n_), name);

call symputx('type'||left(_n_), type);

if eof then call symputx('totfields', x);

run;

%macro final(infile=,outfile=);

data &outfile(drop=nonblank);

set &infile;

nonblank=0;

%do i=1 %to &totfields;

%if &&type&i eq char %then %do;

if &&field&i ne '' then nonblank=1;

%end;

%else %do;

if &&field&i ne . then nonblank=1;

%end;

%end;

if nonblank;

run;

%mend final;

/* file raa will have 7 records and file raa2 will have 6 records */

%final(infile=raa,outfile=raa2);