There are two ways to use a NOT EQUAL operator in SAS:

• ne
• ^=

The following examples show how to use each operator in practice with the following dataset in SAS that contains information about various basketball players:

/*create dataset*/
data my_data;
    input team $ position $ points assists;
    datalines;
A Guard 14 4
A Guard 22 22
A Guard 24 9
A Forward 13 13
A Forward 13 9
A Forward 10 10
B Guard 24 4
B Guard 10 6
B Forward 34 2
B Forward 15 5
B Forward 23 23
B Forward 10 4
;
run;

/*view dataset*/
proc printdata=my_data;

Example 1: Using ne as “NOT EQUAL” in SAS

The following code shows how to create a new dataset in SAS and use the ne operator to check if the values in the points and assists columns in each row are not equal:

/*create new dataset*/
data new_data;
    set my_data;
    if points ne assists then points_vs_assists = 'not equal';
    else points_vs_assists = 'equal';
run;

/*view dataset*/
proc printdata=new_data;

Notice that the new column called points_vs_assists has a value of “not equal” if the values in the points and assists columns are not equal or a value of “equal” if the values in the two columns are equal.

Example 2: Using ^= as “NOT EQUAL” in SAS

The following code shows how to create a new dataset in SAS and use the ^= operator to check if the values in the points and assists columns in each row are not equal:

/*create new dataset*/
data new_data;
    set my_data;
    if points ^= assists then points_vs_assists = 'not equal';
    else points_vs_assists = 'equal';
run;

/*view dataset*/
proc printdata=new_data;

Notice that the values in the points_vs_assists column match the values from the previous example.

The following tutorials explain how to perform other common tasks in SAS: