topic Re: Proc Contents Input/Output in SAS Programming

Proc Contents Input/Output

buechler66 — Mon, 04 Mar 2019 21:33:20 GMT

I'm interested in know if I can invoke Proc Contents and input my dataset name and a short list of some of it's variable names (but not all) and have it return just the variable name and it's Type, Length, Format, and Informat?

Any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Re: Proc Contents Input/Output

PeterClemmensen — Mon, 04 Mar 2019 21:35:57 GMT

Something like this is probably the simplest

ods select Variables;
proc contents data=sashelp.class(keep=name height);
run;

Re: Proc Contents Input/Output

novinosrin — Mon, 04 Mar 2019 21:38:59 GMT

For applying filters , I am afraid you are better off querying metadata from dictionary tables.

However, you can use dataset option with filters if you are writing the contents to an output dataset.

Re: Proc Contents Input/Output

buechler66 — Mon, 04 Mar 2019 22:09:54 GMT

wow this gives me great information. Thank you. Is there anyway to output this as a SAS dataset?

Re: Proc Contents Input/Output

PeterClemmensen — Mon, 04 Mar 2019 22:16:04 GMT

Sure thing 🙂

ods select Variables;
ods output Variables=Variables;
proc contents data=sashelp.class(keep=name height);
run;

Re: Proc Contents Input/Output

buechler66 — Mon, 04 Mar 2019 22:39:05 GMT

Thanks so much for the help. This is perfect. I appreciate you taking the time to help.

Re: Proc Contents Input/Output

buechler66 — Mon, 04 Mar 2019 23:34:20 GMT

For the statement 'ods select Variables;'. Is the word Variables a SAS keyword that means something specific?