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Introduction to SAS
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1.1 SAS Program and Language
A SAS program can consist of one or more DATA steps and procedures
(PROC steps), which can be in any sequence depending upon the program-
ming purposes. The building blocks of the DATA and PROC steps are state-
ments and are case insensitive. A statement is made up from one or a series
of elements, such as SAS names, DATA step functions, operators, operands,
special characters, and/or SAS keywords. Each statement must end with a
semicolon. As a matter of fact, a missing semicolon in a statement is one of
the most common programming errors for novice programmers. Some state-
ments can only be used ...