**StudySAS Blog: Mastering Clinical Data Management with SAS**

How to Address PROC COMPARE Reporting Same Values as Different in SAS How to Address PROC COMPARE Reporting Same Values as Different in SAS Working with large datasets in SAS often requires comparing data between two tables. The PROC COMPARE procedure is an essential tool for this task, but sometimes it reports values as different even when they appear to be identical. This issue can arise from various causes, such as numeric precision differences, rounding issues, or formatting inconsistencies. In this post, we will explore common causes of this issue and how to resolve them. 1. Numeric Precision Issues SAS stores numeric values using floating-point precision, which can lead to small differences that aren't immediately visible. These differences may cause PROC COMPARE to report discrepancies even though the values seem the same. Solution: Use the CRITERION or FUZZ option to define an acceptable tolerance for differences. pro...

Here is the new Proc compare.sas program, I have developed ....to compare all the datasets in 2 directories(testing and production) at once and to quick check any mismatches. Proc compare only check if there is any mismatches between the datasets in 2 directories. If any, it reports otherwise it will give us a note saying that: Note: No unequal Values were found. All values compared are exactly equal. See the proc compare snap shot: What if any dataset has the length more than 8, and what if any variable length more than 40 and what if the dataset name has more than 8 characters etc... Proc Compare doesn't address this issue. I have developed the following program to address this issue. It’s a mandatory that we need to follow certain requirements when we are preparing for an electronic submission to the FDA. The following are some of the QC checks FDA requirements: 1) The length of a dataset name & variable name shouldn’t be more than 8 characters. 2) The length data set labe...