Sas min max on a column or first or last then output

[we7dude]

Sas coding help. Let say I have the following table

Name,effdate, trandate
John,20120105,20120101
John,20120105,20120104
Mary,20120108,20120109
Mary, 20120108,20120102

And this is the output I want

John,20120105,20120101
Mary,20120108, 20120102

So the key to filter is trandate but I do not know how to code it in a data step.
Any help is appreciated.

[ameerzaid]

Sort your data in the order you want.

Then use the command "if first.name;"

Proc sort data = datafile ;
By name trandate ;

Data datafile01;
Set datafile;

By name trandate ;

If first.name;

Run;

You'll get the what you want.

[BassFreq]

Alternatively, you can do the following to get the same result:

proc sql;
create table datafile01 as 
select name,effdate,min(trandate) as trandate
from datafile
group by name,effdate;
quit;

I'm assuming that you want the minimum trandate for a given name/effdate combination. Ameerzaid's code assumes the effdate is immaterial. Either method can be adjusted very slightly to recreate either assumption. If Ameerzaid's assumption is correct, then proc sql will do the same thing if you remove effdate from both the select and group by statements. If my assumption is correct, Ameerzaid's code will work if you sort "by name effdate trandate;", and then use "If first.effdate" in the data step.