ARCHIVED: In SAS, how do I reorder variables in a data set?

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When you have existing data in SAS and want to change the order of the variables, use the retain statement. Suppose you have a data set mydata with variables in the order of e c a b d. To change the order to a b c d e, use the following code:

  data mydata;
   retain a b c d e;
   set mydata;
  run;

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