merge_columns Function

/*
Function: merge_columns
Parameters: 
- dataset: the name of the dataset containing the columns to be merged
- column1: the name of the first column to be merged
- column2: the name of the second column to be merged
- new_column: the name of the new column to be created from the merged values of column1 and column2
*/
data merge_columns (keep = new_column);
    set dataset;
    new_column = cats(column1, column2);
run;

Example Usage:

data mydata;
    input column1 $ column2 $;
    datalines;
    John Doe
    Jane Smith
    ;
run;

data merged_data;
    set merge_columns(dataset = mydata, column1 = column1, column2 = column2, new_column = merged);
run;

In the above example, we have a dataset mydata with two columns column1 and column2. We want to merge the values of these two columns into a new column named merged. By using the merge_columns function, we can easily achieve this by specifying the dataset name, column names, and the new column name. The resulting dataset merged_data will have all the original columns from mydata along with the newly created merged column.