Step-by-Step Programming with Base SAS 9.4

Reading Selected Variables

Overview of Reading Selected Variables

You can create a subset of a larger data set not only by excluding observations but also by specifying which variables you want the new data set to contain. In a DATA step, you can use the SET statement and the KEEP= or DROP= data set options (or the DROP and KEEP statements) to create a subset from a larger data set by specifying which variables you want the new data set to include.

Keeping Selected Variables

This example uses the KEEP= data set option in the SET statement to read only the variables that represent the services-related expenditures of the data set CITY.

data services;
   set city (keep=Year ServicesTotal ServicesPolice ServicesFire
            ServicesWater_Sewer); run; proc ...