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3
Understanding How the DATA Step Works
3.1 DATA Step Processing Overview
A common befuddlement often facing beginning SAS
®
programmers is that
the SAS data set that they create is not what they intended to create—that is,
there are more or less observations than intended or the value of the newly
created variable is not retained correctly. These types of mistakes occur
because new programmers often focus exclusively on language syntax but
fail to understand how the DATA step actually works.
The purpose of this chapter is to guide you through how DATA step pro-
gramming operates, step by step, by way of providing various examples. The
material ...