FIND Statement

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Language Reference

FIND Statement

finds observations

FIND <range> <WHERE(expression)> INTO matrix-name;

The inputs to the FIND statement are as follows:

range: specifies a range of observations.
expression: is an expression that is evaluated for being true or false.
matrix-name: names a matrix to contain the observation numbers.

The FIND statement finds the observation numbers of records in range that satisfy the conditions of the WHERE clause. The FIND statement places these observation numbers in the numeric matrix whose name follows the INTO keyword.

You can specify a range of observations with a keyword or by record number using the POINT option. You can use any of the following keywords to specify range:

ALL

all observations

CURRENT

the current observation

NEXT <number>

the next observation or the next number of observations

AFTER

all observations after the current one

POINT operand

observations specified by number, where operand is one of the following:

Operand	Example
a single record number	`point 5`
a literal giving several	`point {2 5 10}`
record numbers
the name of a matrix	`point p`
containing record numbers
an expression in parentheses	`point (p+1)`

If the current data set has an index in use, the POINT option is invalid.

The WHERE clause conditionally selects observations, within the range specification, according to conditions given in the clause. The general form of the WHERE clause is

WHERE( variable comparison-op operand)

In the statement above,

variable

is a variable in the SAS data set.

comparison-op

is one of the following comparison operators:

<: less than
<=: less than or equal to
=: equal to
>: greater than
>=: greater than or equal to
=: not equal to
?: contains a given string
?: does not contain a given string
= :: begins with a given string
= *: sounds like or is spelled similar to a given string

operand

is a literal value, a matrix name, or an expression in parentheses.

WHERE comparison arguments can be matrices. For the following operators, the WHERE clause succeeds if all the elements in the matrix satisfy the conditon:

= ? < <= > >=

For the following operators, the WHERE clause succeeds if any of the elements in the matrix satisfy the condition:

= ? = : = *

Logical expressions can be specified within the WHERE clause using the AND (&) and OR (|) operators. The general form is

clause&clause (for an AND clause)

clause|clause (for an OR clause)

where clause can be a comparison, a parenthesized clause, or a logical expression clause that is evaluated using operator precedence.

Note: The expression on the left-hand side refers to values of the data set variables, and the expression on the right-hand side refers to matrix values.

Below are some valid examples of the FIND statement:

   find all  where(name=:"Smith") into p;
   find next where(age>30) into p2;

P and P2 are column vectors containing the observation numbers that satisfy the WHERE clause in the given range. The default range is all observations.

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	clause&clause	(for an AND clause)
	clause\|clause	(for an OR clause)