PROC TABULATE by Example, Second Edition

Examine the Data

Overview

Now we are ready to examine the data in more detail. You can use PROC PRINT to look at the printed output and PROC FREQ to look at frequency distributions.

Examine the Printed Output

The best way to look at the data is to run PROC PRINT on a sample of the observations. This gives us a feel for the data. You can miss important details if you only look at summary procedures such as PROC FREQ and PROC MEANS.

PROC PRINT DATA=TESTDAT (OBS=50);
   VAR ID EDUC INCOME AGE;
   FORMAT _ALL_;
   TITLE 'SAMPLE RECORDS FOR REVIEW';
RUN;

To keep the output manageable, the (OBS=50) option limits the output to 50 observations instead of all 6,639. The FORMAT _ALL_ statement is used to strip off the formats from each of the variables. You ...