Match-Merge Processing

Overview

The match-merging examples in this chapter are straightforward. However, match-merging can be more complex, depending on your data and on the output data set that you want to create. To predict the results of match-merges correctly, you need to understand how the DATA step performs match-merges.
When you submit a DATA step, it is processed in two phases:
  • the compilation phase, in which SAS checks the syntax of the SAS statements and compiles them (translates them into machine code). During this phase, SAS also sets up descriptor information for the output data set and creates the program data vector (PDV), an area of memory where SAS holds one observation at a time.
    Match-Merge Processing: Compilation ...

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