SAS Data Sets (4)

Basic Concepts

SAS Data Sets

Variable Attributes

Besides general information about the data set, the descriptor portion contains attribute information for each variable in the data set. The attribute information includes the variable's name, type, length, format, informat, and label.

The following is a partial listing of the attribute information in the descriptor portion of the SAS data set Insure.

Variable Type Length Format Informat Label

Policy Num
8

Policy Number

Total Num
8
DOLLAR8.2 COMMA10. Total Balance

Name Char
20
Patient Name

When you write SAS programs, it's important to understand the attributes of the variables that you use. For example, you may need to combine SAS data sets containing like-named variables. In this case, the variables must be the same type (character or numeric). Or you may want to specify that your reports use labels in place of variable names. If you enter data interactively, you need to know the input format (informat), if any, for variable values.

Let's look at each variable attribute in more detail.