How to use the MIN Function in SAS (With Examples)

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You can use the MIN function in SAS to find the smallest value in a list of values.

Here are the two most common ways to use this function:

Method 1: Find Minimum Value of One Column in Dataset

proc sql;
    select min(var1)
    from my_data;
quit;

Method 2: Find Minimum Value of One Column Grouped by Another Column in Dataset

proc sql;
    select var2, min(var1)
    from my_data;
    group by var2;
quit;

The following examples show how to use each method with the following dataset in SAS:

/*create dataset*/
data my_data;
    input team $ points;
    datalines;
A 12
A 14
A 19
A 23
A 20
A 11
A 14
B 20
B 21
B 29
B 14
B 19
B 17
B 30
;
run;

/*view dataset*/
proc print data=my_data;

Note: The MIN function automatically ignores missing values when calculating the minimum value of a list.

Example 1: Find Minimum Value of One Column in Dataset

The following code shows how to calculate the minimum value in the points column of the dataset:

/*calculate minimum value of points*/
proc sql;
    select min(points)
    from my_data;
quit;

We can see that proc sql returns a table with a value of 11.

This represents the minimum value in the points column.

Example 2: Find Minimum Value of One Column Grouped by Another Column

/*calculate minimum value of points grouped by team*/
proc sql;
    select team, min(points)
    from my_data;
    group by team;
quit;

From the output we can see:

• The minimum points value for team A is 11.
• The minimum points value for team B is 14.

Note: You can find the complete documentation for the MIN function in SAS .

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