In
order to create reports with SAS procedures, your data must be in
the form of a SAS data set. If your data is not stored in the form
of a SAS data set, you need to create a SAS data set by entering
data, by reading raw data, or by accessing files that were created
by other software.
This chapter shows you how to
design and write DATA step programs to create SAS data sets from
raw data that is stored in an external file and from data stored in
Microsoft Excel worksheets. It also shows you how to read data from
a SAS data set and write observations out to these
destinations.
Regardless of the input data
source — raw files or Excel worksheets — you use the DATA step to
read in the data and create the SAS data set.