/*
This program removes the FIRST character from each variable name.
This, or slight variations of this routine can come in useful when
you are programming in SAS.
*/

options nodate pageno=1 linesize=80 pagesize=60;
  data fitness;
   input _Age XWeight ZRuntime WOxygen @@;
   cards;
57 73.37 12.63 39.407   54 79.38 11.17 46.080
52 76.32 9.63  45.441   50 70.87 8.92    .
51 67.25 11.08 45.118   54 91.63 12.88 39.203
51 73.71 10.47 45.790   57 59.08 9.93  50.545
49 76.32  .    48.673   48 61.24 11.5  47.920
52 82.78 10.5  47.467   44 73.03 10.13 50.541
45 87.66 14.03 37.388   45 66.45 11.12 44.754
47 79.15 10.6  47.273   54 83.12 10.33 51.855
49 81.42 8.95  40.836   51 77.91 10.00 46.672
48 91.63 10.25 46.774   49 73.37 10.08 50.388
44 89.47 11.37 44.609   40 75.07 10.07 45.313
44 85.84 8.65  54.297   42 68.15 8.17  59.571
38 89.02 9.22  49.874   47 77.45 11.63 44.811
40 75.98 11.95 45.681   43 81.19 10.85 49.091
44 81.42 13.08 39.442   38 81.87 8.63  60.055
;
                                                    
/** This macro will rename all variables, removing the first character **/  
%macro vars(dsn);                                                           
 %let dsid=%sysfunc(open(&dsn));                                            
 %let num=%sysfunc(attrn(&dsid,nvars));                                     
  data &dsn;                                                                
   set &dsn(rename=(                                                        
    %do i = 1 %to #                                                     
     %let var&i=%sysfunc(varname(&dsid,&i));                                
       &&var&i=%substr(&&var&i,2,%eval(%length(&&var&i)-1))                 
    %end;));                                                                
 %let rc=%sysfunc(close(&dsid));                                            
  run;                                                                      
%mend vars;                                                                 
%vars(fitness);