topic Re: Record vs observation in SAS Programming

Record vs observation

ArchanaSudhir — Mon, 10 Oct 2016 15:13:05 GMT

Hi,

I am reading topics on creating multiple observations from a single record {@,@@) and creating one observation per detail record.

I am getting confused between record and observation. Is there a easy way to understand the difference?

Thanks,

Archana

Re: Record vs observation

Astounding — Mon, 10 Oct 2016 15:29:27 GMT

There's no real difference. They both mean a single row of data. SAS documentation uses "observation" to mean a row of data in a SAS data set, and "record" to mean a row of data from any other source.

Re: Record vs observation

Cynthia_sas — Mon, 10 Oct 2016 16:22:07 GMT

Hi:
These all mean the same thing:
observation=row=record
variable=column=field
dataset=table=file

For example, observation, variable and dataset are SAS terms; row, column and table are relational database terms; row, column and sheet are Excel terms; record, field and file are mainframe file terminology.

cynthia

Re: Record vs observation

kellios — Tue, 22 Aug 2017 14:34:25 GMT

Just to add, because I was confused about this. There are times when a single observation may come from multiple rows of data (i.e multple records). eg:

Bob 2 Turtle
Green Michigan
Amy 3 Dog
Blue Alabama

When we read this correctly, there result will be 2 observations.