SAS Data Sets (6)

Basic Concepts

SAS Data Sets

Variable Attributes: Type
A variable's type is either character or numeric.

Character variables, such as Name (shown below), can contain any values.

Numeric variables, such as Policy and Total (shown below), can contain only numeric values (the digits 0 through 9, +, -, ., and E for scientific notation).

Variable Type Length Format Informat Label

Policy Num 8
Policy Number

Total Num 8 DOLLAR8.2 COMMA10. Total Balance

Name Char 20 Patient Name

Variable Type and Missing Values

A variable's type determines how SAS software displays missing values for a variable.

For character variables such as Name (shown below), a blank represents a missing value.
For numeric variables such as Age (shown below), a period represents a missing value.

Missing
values

Name	Sex	Age	Weight
	M	48	128.6
Laverne	M	58	158.3
Jaffe	F	.	115.5
Wilson	M	28	170.1