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The RANK Procedure

Concepts


Computer Resources
PROC RANK stores all values in memory of the variables for which it computes ranks.


Statistical Applications
Ranks are useful for investigating the distribution of values for a variable. The ranks divided by n or n+1 form values in the range 0 to 1, and these values estimate the cumulative distribution function. You can apply inverse cumulative distribution functions to these fractional ranks to obtain probability quantile scores, which you can compare to the original values to judge the fit to the distribution. For example, if a set of data has a normal distribution, the normal scores should be a linear function of the original values, and a plot of scores versus original values should be a straight line.

Many nonparametric methods are based on analyzing ranks of a variable:


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