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Re: Summary of Variables in a Dataset

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On May 29, 3:08 am, epgauss <epga...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello all,
>
> When i get my hands on a new dataset, I am looking for a very quick way
> to summarize all the variables in it.
>
> For all variable types,I need to see total number of observations,
> number of missing variables, percentiles, and for character variables -
> distribution by major categories.
>
> Is there any macro or some way to do it instead of just doing proc
> contents, or proc means for a subset of variables and etc.

I have always questioned the value of doing this. Speaking as someone
who has worked on many many many large datasets, you need to answer
focused questions. You can't just say ... let's look at summaries of
all of this, because I have never seen where that leads to anything
valuable, except perhaps as a screen for inappropriate/incorrect data.
And what are you going to do with means and percentiles of phone
numbers?

--
Paige Miller
paige\dot\miller \at\ kodak\dot\com

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Summary of Variables in a Dataset epgauss <epgauss@gmail.com> - 2011-05-29 00:08 -0700
  Re: Summary of Variables in a Dataset "Kenneth M. Lin" <kenneth_m_lin@sbcglobal.net> - 2011-05-29 09:16 -0700
    Re: Summary of Variables in a Dataset epgauss <epgauss@gmail.com> - 2011-05-29 23:45 -0700
      Re: Summary of Variables in a Dataset Reeza <fkhurshed@gmail.com> - 2011-05-30 09:29 -0700
  Re: Summary of Variables in a Dataset Paige Miller <paige.miller@kodak.com> - 2011-06-01 08:18 -0700
    Re: Summary of Variables in a Dataset epgauss <epgauss@gmail.com> - 2011-06-02 17:37 -0700

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