Column Sorting with PROC Transpose in SAS - sas

Question

I am using below mentioned code to get the columns sorted dynamically after proc transpose. I have gone a lot of solutions for this solution. But now I am getting an error if I run
data work.AB ;
input name $ class $ dt $ gpa $;
datalines;
JOHN 1 201607 C-
JOHN 1 201608 C+
JOHN 1 201702 B-
JOHN 2 201608 A
NICK 1 201608 A
NICK 1 201707 A
MIKE 2 201608 B
MIKE 2 201607 B
MIKE 2 201707 B+
MIKE 2 201702 B
BOB 3 201702 D
BOB 3 201607 C
BOB 3 201707 C
;
proc sort data=work.AB;
by NAME ClASS dt;
run;
PROC TRANSPOSE DATA = AB OUT = ABC(drop=_name_) ;
BY nAME cLASS;
VAR GPA;
ID dt;
RUN ;
proc sql ;
create table test as
select name into : list separated by ' '
from dictionary.columns
where libname='WORK' and memname='ABC'
order by input(substr(name,anydigit(name)),best32.)
;
quit;
%put &list;
data want;
retain &list;
set ABC;
run;
Error that I get is
22 GOPTIONS ACCESSIBLE;
WARNING: Apparent symbolic reference LIST not resolved.
23 %put &list;
&list
24 data want;
25 retain &list;
_
22
200
WARNING: Apparent symbolic reference LIST not resolved.
ERROR 22-322: Syntax error, expecting one of the following: a name, ;, _ALL_, _CHARACTER_, _CHAR_, _NUMERIC_.
ERROR 200-322: The symbol is not recognized and will be ignored.
26 set ABC;
27 run;
Kindly suggest.

Answer 1

You cannot put the values from the same SELECT statement into both a dataset and macro variables. Remove the create table test as from your SQL code.
You also might want to suppress some of the warnings by changing the query to:
proc sql noprint ;
select case when (not anydigit(name)) then -1
else input(substr(name,anydigit(name)),?32.)
end as order
, name
into :list
, :list separated by ' '
from dictionary.columns
where libname='WORK' and memname='ABC'
order by 1
;
quit;
%put &list;