SAS Programs (1)

Basic Concepts

SAS Programs

Let's begin by looking at a simple SAS program. You can use SAS programs to access, analyze, manage, or present your data. This program creates a new SAS data set from an existing SAS data set and then prints a listing of the new data set.

Sample SAS program

Let's see how this program works.

Components of SAS Programs

Our sample SAS program contains two steps: a DATA step and a PROC step. These two types of steps, alone or combined, form all SAS programs.

Sample SAS program

DATA steps typically create or modify SAS data sets, but they can also be used to produce custom-designed reports. For example, you can use DATA steps to

put your data into a SAS data set
compute the values for new variables
check for and correct errors in your data
produce new SAS data sets by subsetting, merging, and updating existing data sets.

PROC (procedure) steps typically analyze and process data in the form of a SAS data set, and they sometimes create SAS data sets that contain the results of the procedure. PROC steps control a library of prewritten routines (procedures) that perform tasks on SAS data sets, such as listing, sorting, and summarizing data. For example, you can use PROC steps to

print a report
produce descriptive statistics
create a tabular report
produce plots and charts.

So, the steps in your SAS program depend on its purpose:

		A SAS program may consist of a DATA step

		or a PROC step

		or any combination of DATA and PROC steps.