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Re: User provided SAS programs

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Karen Danielsen <kadaniel@vt.edu> asks:

>>I wanted to use the SAS user provided programs available online for reading the older AHS files into SAS but I noticed that those programs are only for
the national files. Are any of the metro files formats compatible with the national file formats? I guess what I'm asking is if any of the metro files can be read into SAS using those national files?<<

No. You can't just take one of the programs written for a national data set and apply it to a metro dataset without modification. There are some differences in the variables used in the metro and national surveys.

The user supplied programs library does contain programs to read the 1993 and 1994 metro survey datasets from the CD-ROM. If those are the ones you want, you're in luck. Even if they aren't, you can start with those files and modify the INPUT statement to match the record layout in the codebook, for whatever year you want. This will save you a lot of typing, since it is mainly a matter of changing the column numbers.

If you do write a program for a metro survey that's not in the library already, please be sure to send me a copy. The next person will be grateful to you.

Dav Vandenbroucke
Economist
U.S. Dept. HUD
david_a._vandenbroucke@hud.gov
202-708-1060 ext. 5890