Change Labels

Each variable in a SAS data set has an underlying variable name that must conform to specific limitations. For example, variable names must not start with a number. They cannot contain spaces or special characters. These rules are detailed in SAS Variable Names and Labels. In addition to these names, however, each variable can have a longer and more descriptive label that is not under these restrictions.

The Change Labels process enables you to create, remove, or change the labels for one or more variables in a SAS data set.

What do I need?

Any SAS data set.

For an example, consider the adsl.sas7bdat data set (found in the \LifeSciences\Sample Data\Nicardipine\ADaM directory included with JMP Genomics and JMP Clinical, and described in Nicardipine). The STUDYID variable label is currently set to “Study Identifier”.

You’d like to change it to “Name of Study”.

For detailed information about the files and data sets used or created by JMP Life Sciences software, see Files and Data Sets.

Output/Results

The output data set (identified by the suffix _dlb) is identical to the input data set except that selected labels have been altered as specified.

In example output, the STUDYID SAS Label has been changed to “Name of Study”.

Note: This process displays input and output data set columns using SAS Names and Labels, respectively.