SAS Certification Prep Guide: Base Programming for SAS 9, Third Edition

Writing a DATA Step Program

Naming the Data Set

The DATA statement indicates the beginning of the DATA step and names the SAS data set to be created.

Naming the Data Set

To do this...	Use this SAS statement...	Example
Reference a SAS library	LIBNAME statement	libname libref 'SAS-data-library';
Reference an external file	FILENAME statement	filename tests 'c:\users\tmill.dat';
Name a SAS data set	DATA statement	data clinic.stress;

General form, basic DATA statement: DATA SAS-data-set-1 <...SAS-data-set-n>; where SAS-data-set names (in the format libref.filename) the data set or data sets to be created.

Remember that the SAS data set name is a two-level name. For example, the two-level name Clinic.Admit ...