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Merging SAS Data Sets
Match-Merge Processing


Handling Unmatched Observations and Missing Values

By default, all observations written to the PDV, including observations with missing data and no matching BY values, are written to the output data set. (If you specify a subsetting IF statement to select observations, only those that meet the IF condition are written.)

  • If an observation contains missing values for a variable, the observation in the output data set contains the missing values as well. Observations with missing values for the BY variable appear at the top of the output data set.

missing values read to new data set

  • If an input data set doesn't have any observations for a given value of the common variable, the observation in the output data set contains missing values for the variables unique to that input data set.

another example of missing values read to new data set


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