How to Use the MAX Function in SAS (With Examples)

You can use the MAX function in SAS to find the largest value in a list of values.

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

Method 1: Find Max Value of One Column in Dataset

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

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

proc sql;
    select var2, max(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 MAX function automatically ignores missing values when calculating the max value of a list.

Example 1: Find Max Value of One Column in Dataset

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

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

We can see that proc sql returns a table with a value of 30.

This represents the max value in the points column.

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

The following code shows how to calculate the max value in the points column, grouped by the team column in the dataset:

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

From the output we can see:

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

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

Additional Resources

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

How to Calculate Z-Scores in SAS
How to Use Proc Summary in SAS
How to Calculate Mean, Median, & Mode in SAS