SAS merging multiple tables

Question

I would like to know what is the best way to merge multiple tables. I have a unique identifiers across all the tables. Should I join all the tables in one step after sorting the

Answer 1

There's no particular reason to do it step-by-step, unless you've got conflicting variable names that you're concerned about resolving, or if your combination logic is complicated and you're worried about confusing something. There's no functional reason why not, in any event. merge in SAS is actually somewhat simpler than join in SQL, in particular as the syntax is simpler, so it's somewhat different than the SQL case.