Reading a Single Data Set

Reading and Concatenating SAS Data Sets

Reading a Single Data Set

Suppose that you want to create a small data set, TestTime, from the Stress98 data set, which contains information on treadmill test time and relative tolerance levels. To create the data set, you must first reference the library where Stress98 is stored and then the library where you want to store TestTime. Then you write a DATA step to read your data and create a new data set.

General form, basic DATA step for reading a single data set:
DATA SAS-data-set;
SET SAS-data-set;
RUN;

where

SAS-data-set in the DATA statement is the name (libref.filename) of the SAS data set to be created
SAS-data-set in the SET statement is the name (libref.filename) of the SAS data set to be read.

After you write a DATA step to name the SAS data set to be created, you specify the data set that will be read in the SET statement. The DATA statement below creates the permanent SAS data set Drug1H, which will be stored in the SAS data library assigned the libref Lab23. The SET statement below reads the permanent SAS data set Research.CLTrials.

     data lab23.drug1h;
        set research.cltrials;
     run;

The DATA step above reads all observations and variables from the existing data set into the new data set. When you submit this DATA step, the following messages appear in the log, confirming that the new data set was created:

SAS Log

   8  data lab23.drug1h;
   9     set research.cltrials;
  10  run;

  NOTE: The data set LAB23.DRUG1H has 21 
        observations and 8 variables