COMPUTE variable = expression.
or
COMPUTE vector(index) = expression.
COMPUTE assigns the value of an expression to a target variable. For each case, the expression is evaluated and its value assigned to the target variable. Numeric and short and long string variables may be assigned. When a string expression's width differs from the target variable's width, the string result of the expression is truncated or padded with spaces on the right as necessary. The expression and variable types must match.
For numeric variables only, the target variable need not already
exist. Numeric variables created by COMPUTE are assigned an
F8.2 output format. String variables must be declared before
they can be used as targets for COMPUTE.
The target variable may be specified as an element of a vector (see VECTOR). In this case, a vector index expression must be specified in parentheses following the vector name. The index expression must evaluate to a numeric value that, after rounding down to the nearest integer, is a valid index for the named vector.
Using COMPUTE to assign to a variable specified on LEAVE
(see LEAVE) resets the variable's left state. Therefore,
LEAVE should be specified following COMPUTE, not before.
COMPUTE is a transformation. It does not cause the active file to be read.
When COMPUTE is specified following TEMPORARY (see TEMPORARY), the LAG function may not be used (see LAG).