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SAS FAQ
How can I see the number of missing values and patterns of missing values in a data file?

Sometimes, a data set may have "holes" in them, i.e., missing values and we may want to know  the number of missing values of all the variables and the distribution of the missing values. We will use the following data set as our example data set.

data test;
input landval improval totval salepric saltoapr city $6. season $8.;
datalines;
   30000     64831     94831    118500   1.25  A    spring
   30000     50765     80765     93900    .         winter
   46651     18573     65224         .   1.16  B      
   45990     91402         .    184000   1.34  C    winter
   42394         .     40575    168000   1.43       
       .      3351     51102    169000   1.12  D    winter
   63596      2182     65778         .   1.26  E    spring
   56658     53806     10464    255000   1.21      
   51428     72451         .         .   1.18  F    spring
   93200         .      4321    422000   1.04      
   76125     78172     54297    290000   1.14  G    winter
       .     61934     16294    237000   1.10  H    spring
   65376     34458         .    286500   1.43       winter
   42400         .     57446         .    .    K    
   40800     92606     33406    168000   1.26  S    
;
run;

1. Number of missing values vs. number of  non missing values in each variable

The first thing we are going to look at the variables that have a lot of missing values. For numerical variables, we use proc means with the options n and nmiss.

proc means data = test n nmiss;
  var _numeric_;
run;
                     N
Variable     N    Miss
----------------------
LANDVAL     13       2
IMPROVAL    12       3
TOTVAL      12       3
SALEPRIC    11       4
SALTOAPR    13       2

For character variables, we can use proc freq to display the number of missing values in each variable.

proc freq data = test;
  tables city season ;
run;
                                 Cumulative    Cumulative
city    Frequency     Percent     Frequency      Percent
---------------------------------------------------------
A              1       10.00             1        10.00
B              1       10.00             2        20.00
C              1       10.00             3        30.00
D              1       10.00             4        40.00
E              1       10.00             5        50.00
F              1       10.00             6        60.00
G              1       10.00             7        70.00
H              1       10.00             8        80.00
K              1       10.00             9        90.00
S              1       10.00            10       100.00

Frequency Missing = 5


                                   Cumulative    Cumulative
season    Frequency     Percent     Frequency      Percent
-----------------------------------------------------------
spring           4       44.44             4        44.44
winter           5       55.56             9       100.00

Frequency Missing = 6

2. Number of missing values in each observation

We can also look at the number of missing values in each observation. For example, we can use SAS function nmiss to store the number of missing values from all the numeric variables in each observation. An array of all the character variables is created for counting the missing values in all the character variables.

data test1;
  set test;
  miss_num = nmiss(of landval -- saltoapr);
  array mychar(*) $ _character_;
  miss_char = 0;
  do i = 1 to dim(mychar);
    if mychar(i) ="" then miss_char=miss_char+1;
  end;
  drop i;
run;
proc print data = test1;
run;
                                                                   miss_
Obs landval improval totval salepric saltoapr city season miss_num  char

  1  30000    64831   94831  118500    1.25    A   spring     0      0
  2  30000    50765   80765   93900     .          winter     1      1
  3  46651    18573   65224       .    1.16    B              1      1
  4  45990    91402       .  184000    1.34    C   winter     1      0
  5  42394        .   40575  168000    1.43                   1      2
  6      .     3351   51102  169000    1.12    D   winter     1      0
  7  63596     2182   65778       .    1.26    E   spring     1      0
  8  56658    53806   10464  255000    1.21                   0      2
  9  51428    72451       .       .    1.18    F   spring     2      0
 10  93200        .    4321  422000    1.04                   1      2
 11  76125    78172   54297  290000    1.14    G   winter     0      0
 12      .    61934   16294  237000    1.10    H   spring     1      0
 13  65376    34458       .  286500    1.43        winter     1      1
 14  42400        .   57446       .     .      K              3      1
 15  40800    92606   33406  168000    1.26    S              0      1

3. Distribution of missing values

We can also look at the patterns of  missing values. We can recode each variable into a dummy variable such that 1 is missing and 0 is nonmissing. Then we use the proc freq with statement tables with option list to compute the frequency for each pattern of missing data.

data miss_pattern (drop=i);
  set test;
  array mynum(*) _numeric_;
  do i=1 to dim(mynum);
    if  mynum(i) =. then mynum{i}=1;
      else mynum(i)=0;
  end;
  array mychar(*) $ _character_;
  do i=1 to dim(mychar);
    if  mychar(i) ="" then mychar{i}=1;
      else mychar(i)=0;
  end;
run;
proc freq data=miss_pattern;
  tables landval*improval*totval*salepric*saltoapr*city*season /list;
run;
landval    improval    totval    salepric    saltoapr    city      season
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
      0           0         0           0           0         0           0
      0           0         0           0           0         0           1
      0           0         0           0           0         1           1
      0           0         0           0           1         1           0
      0           0         0           1           0         0           0
      0           0         0           1           0         0           1
      0           0         1           0           0         0           0
      0           0         1           0           0         1           0
      0           0         1           1           0         0           0
      0           1         0           0           0         1           1
      0           1         0           1           1         0           1
      1           0         0           0           0         0           0

                         Cumulative    Cumulative
Frequency     Percent     Frequency      Percent
-------------------------------------------------
       2       13.33             2        13.33
       1        6.67             3        20.00
       1        6.67             4        26.67
       1        6.67             5        33.33
       1        6.67             6        40.00
       1        6.67             7        46.67
       1        6.67             8        53.33
       1        6.67             9        60.00
       1        6.67            10        66.67
       2       13.33            12        80.00
       1        6.67            13        86.67
       2       13.33            15       100.00

Now we see that there are two observations with no missing values, one observation with one missing value in variable season, and so on.


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