Step-by-Step Programming with Base SAS 9.4, Second Edition, 2nd Edition

• produce reports by using the DATA step instead of using a procedure

• direct data to an output file by using a FILE statement

Prerequisites

Before proceeding with this section, you should be familiar with the concepts presented

in the following sections:

• Chapter 1, “What is the SAS System?,” on page 3

• Chapter 3, “Introduction to DATA Step Processing,” on page 27

Understanding the PUT Statement

When you create output using the DATA step, you can customize that output by using

the PUT statement to write text to the SAS log or to another output file. The PUT

statement has the following form:

PUT<variable<format>> <'character-string'>;

variable

names the variable that you want to write.

format

specifies a format to use when you write variable values.

'character-string'

specifies a string of text to write. Be sure to enclose the string in quotation marks.

Writing Output without Creating a Data Set

In many cases, when you use a DATA step to write a report, you do not need to create an

additional data set. When you use the DATA _NULL_ statement, SAS processes the

DATA step without writing observations to a data set. Using the DATA _NULL_

statement can increase program efficiency considerably.

The following is an example of a DATA _NULL_ statement:

data _null_;

The following program uses a PUT statement to write women’s Olympic medalist

information to the SAS log. Because the program uses a DATA _NULL_ statement, SAS

does not create a data set.

data _null_;

length medalist $ 19;

input year 1-4 medalist $ 6-24 medal $ 26-31 country $ 33-35 result 37-41;

put medalist country medal result year;

datalines;

1984 Lingjuan Li SILVER CHN 2559

1984 Jin-Ho Kim BRONZE KOR 2555

1988 Soo-Nyung Kim GOLD KOR 2683

596 Chapter 32 • Writing Lines to the SAS Log or to an Output File