SAS Certification Prep Guide, 4th Edition

Reading Microsoft Excel Data

Decide How to Reference Your Data

Use the DATA step to create a SAS data set whether the input data source is a SAS data set, a raw data file, or a file from another application. The difference between reading these various types of input is in how you reference the data. You can use one of the following methods to read data:

• SAS/ACCESS LIBNAME statement
• PROC IMPORT

The Base SAS LIBNAME statement associates a SAS name (libref) with a SAS data library by pointing to its physical location. But, the SAS/ACCESS LIBNAME statement associates a SAS name with an Excel workbook file by pointing to its location.

In doing so, the Excel workbook becomes a new library in SAS, and the worksheets in the workbook ...