Automatic Variables

Automatic variables are created automatically by the DATA step or by DATA step statements. These variables are added to the program data vector but are not output to the data set being created. The values of automatic variables are retained from one iteration of the DATA step to the next, rather than set to missing.

Automatic variables that are created by specific statements are documented with those statements. For examples, see the BY statement, the MODIFY statement, and the WINDOW statement in SAS Language Reference: Dictionary.

Two automatic variables are created by every DATA step: _N_ and _ERROR_.

_N_

is initially set to 1. Each time the DATA step loops past the DATA statement, the variable _N_ is incremented by 1. The value of _N_ represents the number of times the DATA step has iterated.

_ERROR_

is 0 by default but is set to 1 whenever an error is encountered, such as an input data error, a conversion error, or a math error, as in division by 0 or a floating point overflow. You can use the value of this variable to help locate errors in data records and to print an error message to the SAS log.

For example, either of the two following statements writes to the SAS log, during each iteration of the DATA step, the contents of an input record in which an input error is encountered:

if _error_=1 then put _infile_;

if _error_ then put _infile_;

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