SAS 9.4 Language Reference, 6th Edition

Using ODS to Customize the Style and Structure of Output

ODS does more than just enable you to control output destinations. It also enables you to

customize the structure and style of your output. Since ODS uses table and style

templates (definitions) to display procedure and DATA step results, you can control

these results by creating customized table and style templates. You can also modify

existing style and table definitions if you do not want to create the definitions from

scratch.

For information about the Output Delivery System, see SAS Output Delivery System:

User’s Guide.

Reformatting Values in Output

Certain SAS statements, procedures, and options enable you to print values using

specified formats. In a windowing environment, you can use the Properties window to

control how values are displayed. You can apply or change formats with the FORMAT

and ATTRIB statements, or with the Properties window in a windowing environment.

The FORMAT procedure enables you to design your own formats and informats, giving

you added flexibility in displaying values. See “FORMAT Procedure” in Base SAS

Procedures Guide for more information about the FORMAT procedure, and SAS System

Options: Reference for information about all other SAS system options.

Printing Missing Values

SAS represents ordinary missing numeric values in a SAS listing as a single period and

missing character values as a blank space. If you specify special missing values for

numeric variables, SAS writes the letter or the underscore. For character variables, SAS

writes a series of blanks equal to the length of the variable.

The MISSING= system option enables you to specify a character to print in place of the

period for ordinary missing numeric values. For more information, see the “MISSING=

System Option” in SAS System Options: Reference.

Sample SAS Output

Default HTML Output in the SAS Windowing Environment

Starting with SAS 9.3, the default destination is HTML when running SAS in the

windowing environment for the Windows and UNIX operating environments. The

default output is displayed in the SAS Results Viewer Window.

title 'Student Weight';

proc print data=sashelp.class;

where weight>100;

run;

quit;

162 Chapter 9 • SAS Output

Output 9.1 Default HTML Output in the Windowing Environment

Note: At SAS start-up, unless you have previously closed the HTML destination, output

is sent to the WORK directory by default. If you close the HTML destination and re-

open it in the same SAS session, all output goes to the current directory rather than

the WORK directory. You do not have to specify ODS HTML CLOSE; to view your

output.

Traditional SAS LISTING Output in the SAS Windowing

Environment

If you are running SAS in windowing mode and want to send your output to the

LISTING destination, you can use ODS statements in your SAS programs to change the

destination. If you want a more permanent solution, you can change your settings so that

every time you run SAS, your output is sent to the LISTING destination by default. For

information about how to change these settings, see “Default HTML Output” in SAS

Output Delivery System: User’s Guide.

In this example, the output destination is changed from HTML to LISTING by

specifying the ODS LISTING and ODS HTML CLOSE statements. By changing the

output destination to LISTING, the output is automatically displayed as a list report in

the SAS Output Window.

ods html close;

ods listing;

options nodate;

title 'Students';

Sample SAS Output 163