How to determine whether a numeric or character value exists within a group of variables
Using the IN operator to determine whether a numeric or character value exists within a group of variables When trying to determine whether a specific value exists within a group of variables, a common approach is to associate the variables with an ARRAY and then use a DO loop to loop through every element or variable in the ARRAY. As an example, here is a segment of code: array my_array[*] var1 - var10; do i = 1 to dim (my_array); if some_value = my_array[ i ] then found = 'Yes' ; end ; A more efficient alternative is to use the IN operator with the name of the ARRAY and avoid using the DO loop. This can be done with both numeric ARRAYS as well as character ARRAYS. Here is a code segment: array my_array[*] var1 - var10; if some_value IN my_array then found = ' Yes '; source: http://support.sas.com/kb/33/227.html