SAS 9.4 Language Reference, 6th Edition

• “FILENAME Statement, FTP Access Method” in SAS Global Statements:

Reference

• “FILENAME Statement, Hadoop Access Method” in SAS Global Statements:

Reference

• “FILENAME Statement, SFTP Access Method” in SAS Global Statements:

Reference

• “FILENAME Statement, SOCKET Access Method” in SAS Global Statements:

Reference

• “FILENAME Statement, URL Access Method” in SAS Global Statements:

Reference

• “FILENAME Statement, WebDAV Access Method” in SAS Global Statements:

Reference

• “FILENAME Statement, ZIP Access Method” in SAS Global Statements:

Reference

The DATA Step

What Does the DATA Step Do?

The DATA step processes input data. In a DATA step, you can create a SAS data set,

which can be a SAS data file or a SAS view. The DATA step uses input from raw data,

remote access, assignment statements, or SAS data sets. The DATA step can compute

values, select specific input records for processing, and use conditional logic. The output

from the DATA step can be of several types, such as a SAS data set or a report. You can

also write data to the SAS log or to an external data file. For more information, see

Chapter 20, “DATA Step Processing,” on page 411.

DATA Step Output

The output from the DATA step can be a SAS data set or an external file such as the

program log, a report, or an external data file. You can also update an existing file in

place, without creating a separate data set. Data must be in the form of a SAS data set to

be processed by many SAS procedures. You can create the following types of DATA

step output:

SAS log

contains a list of processing messages and program errors. The SAS log is produced

by default.

SAS data file

is a SAS data set that contains two parts: a data portion and a data descriptor portion.

SAS view

is a SAS data set that uses descriptor information and data from other files. SAS

views enable you to dynamically combine data from various sources without using

disk space to create a new data set. A SAS data file contains actual data values.

However, SAS views contain only references to data stored elsewhere. SAS views

are of member type VIEW. In most cases, you can use a SAS view as if it were a

SAS data file.

16 Chapter 2 • SAS Processing