PROC CONTENTS is a SAS procedure that provides detailed information about the contents of SAS data sets. It can be used to view metadata such as the names, types, and formats of the variables in a data set, as well as the number of observations and other attributes.
To use PROC CONTENTS in SAS, you can follow these basic steps:
1. Open SAS: Open the SAS application on your computer. The application should launch with a main menu screen.
2. Open the Program Editor: To create a new program, go to File > New > Program to open the Program Editor window.
3. Write SAS code: In the Program Editor window, type the following code to use PROC CONTENTS on a data set called “mydata”:
proc contentsproc contents data=mydata;
run;
4. Run the program: To run your program, go to the Program Editor window and click the Run button (a green arrow icon). Alternatively, you can run the program by pressing the F3 key.
5. View the output: After the program has finished running, the output will appear in the Output window. In this example, the output will display information about the variables in the “mydata” data set, including their names, types, lengths, and formats.
PROC CONTENTS can also be used to extract specific pieces of information from SAS data sets, such as the number of observations, the variable labels, or the creation date. To do this, you can use options like VAR, OUT, and PRINT in the PROC CONTENTS statement.
Overall, PROC CONTENTS is a useful tool for exploring and analyzing the metadata of SAS data sets, and can help users understand the structure and content of their data.
