The column that is not in the table

Every reporting team has a version of this request, and it always sounds like a five minute job: "can we have a region column? It is just the state, mapped. And a line value - quantity times price. We do not need it stored, we just need it on the screen."

It is never a five minute job - so Data Controller now does the obvious thing instead. You write the expression, and the EDIT screen shows the column: computed on every read, never stored, marked fx and read-only, so nobody has to wonder whether it is locked or simply has nothing to edit.

The part that took the thinking is that they filter like any other column. That needed a DATA step view rather than a data step, and the reasoning is worth reading: Derived variables: computed columns you can filter on.

Reference: Derived Variables.

If a table of yours has been waiting for "just one more column", we would love to hear from you.