SAS array declaration

Question

I read the SAS code to calculate NBBO , and I came across the following code:

array nexb nexb:; array nexo nexo:; array sexb sexb:; array sexo sexo:;

I was wondering what the instruction does here array nexb nexb:;?

Answer 1

Two things:

nexb:is a list of wildcard variables. It expands to a list of all variables on the PDV at this point in the data step starting with nexb. The same thing that is nexb1-nexb17more than likely (not knowing what is in the data sets in the instruction set). It is identical and simply used to simplify changing this 17after some time without having to do it twice.

array nexb nexb: , , nexb1 nexb[1], , [1] [i] , nexb1 . , . , .