Raw data files can be hierarchical in
structure, consisting of a header record and one or more detail records.
Typically, each record contains a field that identifies the record
type.
In the raw data file above, the P indicates a header record that contains a patient's ID number. The C indicates a detail record that contains the date of the patient's appointment and the charges that the patient has incurred. This book covers two methods of building a SAS data set from a hierarchical file. You can build a SAS data set from a hierarchical file by creating one observation per detail record, retaining ...