SAS 9.4 SQL Procedure User's Guide, Fourth Edition, 4th Edition

argument-1=value-1 <argument-2=value-2 ...>

specifies that the argument must be assigned a value and that you can specify

multiple arguments. The ellipsis (...) indicates that additional arguments are allowed.

No punctuation is required between arguments.

The LABEL statement is an example of this form of multiple arguments:

LABEL variable-1=label-1 <variable-2=label-2 …>;

argument-1 <, argument-2, ...>

specifies that one argument is required and that you can specify multiple arguments

that are separated by a comma or other punctuation. The ellipsis (...) indicates a

continuation of the arguments, separated by a comma. Both forms are used in the

SAS documentation.

Here are examples of this form of multiple arguments:

AUTHPROVIDERDOMAIN (provider-1:domain-1 <, provider-2:domain-2, …>

INTO :macro-variable-specification-1 <, :macro-variable-specification-2, …>

Note: In most cases, example code in SAS documentation is written in lowercase with a

monospace font. You can use uppercase, lowercase, or mixed case in the code that

you write.

Style Conventions

The style conventions that are used in documenting SAS syntax include uppercase bold,

uppercase, and italic:

UPPERCASE BOLD

identifies SAS keywords such as the names of functions or statements. In this

example, the keyword ERROR is written in uppercase bold:

ERROR <message>;

UPPERCASE

identifies arguments that are literals.

In this example of the CMPMODEL= system option, the literals include BOTH,

CATALOG, and XML:

CMPMODEL=BOTH | CATALOG | XML |

italic

identifies arguments or values that you supply. Items in italic represent user-supplied

values that are either one of the following:

• nonliteral arguments. In this example of the LINK statement, the argument label

is a user-supplied value and therefore appears in italic:

LINK label;

• nonliteral values that are assigned to an argument.

In this example of the FORMAT statement, the argument DEFAULT is assigned

the variable default-format:

FORMAT variable(s) <format > <DEFAULT = default-format>;

Special Characters

The syntax of SAS language elements can contain the following special characters:

Syntax Conventions for the SAS Language ix