Formatting Variable Values

In your SAS reports, formats control the way data values are displayed. To make data values more understandable when displayed in your procedure output, you can use the FORMAT statement, which associates formats with variables. The FORMAT statement remains in effect only for the PROC step in which it appears.

Formats affect only the way that the data values appear in output, not the actual data values as they are stored in the SAS data set.

General form, FORMAT statement:

FORMAT variable(s) format-name;

where

variable(s) is the name of one or more variables whose values are to be written according to a particular pattern
format-name specifies a SAS or user-defined format that is used to write out the values.

You can use a separate FORMAT statement for each variable, or you can format several variables (using the same or different formats) in a single FORMAT statement.

This FORMAT statement ...	Associates ...
format date mmddyy6.;	the format MMDDYY6. with the variable `Date`
format net comma5.0 gross comma8.2;	the format COMMA5.0 with the variable `Net` and the format COMMA8.2 with the variable `Gross`
format net gross dollar9.2;	the format DOLLAR9.2 with both variables, `Net` and `Gross`

For example, the FORMAT statement below writes values of the variable Fee using dollar signs, commas, and no decimal places:
proc print data=clinic.admit; var actlevel fee; where actlevel='HIGH'; format fee dollar4.; run;

Obs	ActLevel	Fee
1	HIGH	$85
2	HIGH	$125
6	HIGH	$125
11	HIGH	$150
14	HIGH	$125
18	HIGH	$85
20	HIGH	$150

You can permanently assign a format to a variable in a SAS data set, or you can temporarily specify a format in a PROC step to determine the way that the data values appear in output.