SAS sort by original order - sas

Question

Say you have three separate data sets consisting of the same number of observations. Each observation has an ID letter, A-Z, followed by some numerical observation. For example:
Data set 1:
B 3 8 1 9 4
C 4 1 9 3 1
A 4 4 5 4 9
Data set 2:
C 3 1 9 4 0
A 4 1 2 0 0
B 0 3 3 1 8
I want to merge the data sets BY that first variable. The problem is, the first variable is NOT already sorted in alphabetical form, and I do not want to sort it in alphabetical form. I want to merge the data but keep the original order. For example, I would get:
Merged data:
B 3 8 1 9 4
B 0 3 3 1 8
C 4 1 9 3 1
C 3 1 9 4 0
A 4 4 5 4 9
A 4 1 2 0 0
Is there any way to do this?

Answer 1

You can create a variable that holds the order and then apply that the new dataset after its "merged". I believe this is an append rather than merge though. I've used a format, though you could use a sql or data set merge as well.
data have1;
input id $ var1-var5;
cards;
B 3 8 1 9 4
C 4 1 9 3 1
A 4 4 5 4 9
;
run;
data have2;
input id $ var1-var5;
cards;
C 3 1 9 4 0
A 4 1 2 0 0
B 0 3 3 1 8
;
run;
data order;
set have1;
fmtname='sort_order';
type='J';
label=_n_;
start=id;
keep id fmtname type label start;
run;
proc format cntlin=order;
run;
data want;
set have1 have2;
order_var=input(id, $sort_order.);
run;
proc sort data=want;
by order_var;
run;

Answer 2

This is just one SQL version which follows along a similar path to Joe's answer. Row order is input via a sub-query rather than a format. However the initial order of the two input tables is lost in the join to the row order sub-query. The original order (have2 follows have1) is re-instated by using the table names as a secondary order variable.
proc sql;
create table want1 as
select want.id
,want.var1
,want.var2
,want.var3
,want.var4
,want.var5
from (
select *
, 'have1' as source
from have1
union all
select *
, 'have2' as source
from have2
) as want
left join
(
select id
, monotonic() as row_no
from have1
) as order
on want.id eq order.id
order by order.row_no
,want.source
;
quit;
proc compare
base=want1
compare=want
;
run;
And this is a data step version without a format. Here the have1 table with row order is re-merged with the concatenated data (have1 and have2) and then re-sorted by row order.
data want2;
set have1 have2;
run;
data have1;
set have1;
order_var = _n_;
run;
proc sort data=want2;
by id;
run;
proc sort data=have1;
by id;
run;
data want2;
merge want2 have1;
by id;
run;
proc sort data=want2;
by order_var;
run;
proc compare
base=want2
compare=want
;
run;