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CLASS Statement

Tip:	PROC TIMEPLOT uses the formatted values of the CLASS variables to form classes. Thus, if a format groups the values, the procedure uses those groups.
Featured in:	Showing Multiple Observations on One Line of a Plot

Required Arguments

variable(s)

specifies one or more variables that the procedure uses to group the data. Variables in a CLASS statement are called class variables. Class variables can be numeric or character. Class variables can have continuous values, but they typically have a few discrete values that define the classifications of the variable. You do not have to sort the data by class variables.

The values of the class variables appear in the listing. PROC TIMEPLOT prints and plots one line each time the combination of values of the class variables changes. Therefore, the output typically is more meaningful if you sort or group the data according to values of the class variables.

Using Multiple CLASS Statements

You can use any number of CLASS statements. If you use more than one CLASS statement, PROC TIMEPLOT simply concatenates all variables from all of the CLASS statements. The following form of the CLASS statement includes three variables:

CLASS variable-1 variable-2 variable-3;

It has the same effect as this form:

CLASS variable-1;

CLASS variable-2;

CLASS variable-3;

Using a Symbol Variable

Normally, you use the CLASS statement with a symbol variable (see the discussion of plot requests ). In this case, the listing of the plot variable contains a column for each value of the symbol variable, and each row of the plot contains a point for each value of the symbol variable. The plotting symbol is the first character of the formatted value of the symbol variable. If more than one observation within a class has the same value of a symbol variable, PROC TIMEPLOT plots and prints only the first occurrence of that value and writes a warning message to the SAS log.

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