Very Basic SAS question

[ASerrato]

Hello! I am very VERY new to SAS and I am stuck in something very basic. I am working with SAS Studio and am trying to get the number of records (n), mean, standard deviation, minimum, and maximum values for each column for a data set. I enter:

/* Get descriptive statistics */ 

PROC MEANS DATA=myData; RUN;

I run it and it is only giving me the N Obs as a result , what I am doing wrong? 

[novinosrin]

PROC MEANS DATA=myData n min max mean std; 
var _numeric_;
RUN;

 or 

PROC MEANS DATA=myData n min max mean std; 
var col1 col2 col3;
RUN;

[ASerrato]

Thank you @novinosrin . That makes total sense! But now I got stuck a bit further...

1 OPTIONS NONOTES NOSTIMER NOSOURCE NOSYNTAXCHECK;

72

73 PROC MEANS DATA=myData n min max mean std;

74 var _numeric_;

WARNING: No numeric variables found in data set WORK.MYDATA.

75 RUN;

ERROR: Statistics requested for printing, but no VAR statement has been specified. No printed output will be produced.

ERROR: Neither the PRINT option nor a valid output statement has been given.

 Please help!!!!!!! 

[novinosrin]

Plz check if you have

1. A dataset by the name mydata

2. if yes, run

proc contents data=mydata;

run;

the results should tell you the info about variables in the dataset

3 if the above 2 is fine, run proc means as suggested

[ASerrato]

@novinosrin 

I got this.. seems like the type is Char

Alphabetic List of Variables and Attributes# Variable Type Len Format Informat Label21

B	Char	109	$109.	$109.	B
FRED_Graph_Observations	Char	42	$42.	$42.	FRED Graph Observations

But my dataset contains numbers, which is where I need to get the summary statistics from

1

Federal Reserve Economic Data

2

Link: https://fred.stlouisfed.org

3

Help: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/help-faq

4

Economic Research Division

5

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

6

7

A191RL1Q225SBEA

Real Gross Domestic Product, Percent Change from Preceding Period, Quarterly, Seasonally Adjusted Annual Rate

8

9

Frequency: Quarterly

10

observation_date

A191RL1Q225SBEA

11

17258

-1

12

17349

-.8

13

17441

6.4

14

17533

6.2

15

17624

6.8

16

17715

2.3

17

17807

.4

18

17899

-5.4

19

17989

-1.4

20

18080

4.2

21

18172

-3.3

22

18264

16.7

23

18354

12.8

24

18445

16.4

25

18537

7.9

26

18629

5.5

27

18719

7.1

28

18810

8.5

29

18902

.9

30

18994

4.3

31

19085

.9

32

19176

2.9

33

19268

13.8

34

19360

7.6

35

19450

3.1

36

19541

-2.2

37

19633

-5.9

38

19725

-1.9

39

19815

.4

40

19906

4.6

41

19998

8.1

42

20090

11.9

43

20180

6.7

44

20271

5.5

45

20363

2.4

46

20455

-1.5

47

20546

3.3

48

20637

-.4

49

20729

6.7

50

20821

2.6

51

20911

-.9

52

21002

4

53

21094

-4.1

54

21186

-10

55

21276

2.7

56

21367

9.6

57

21459

9.7

58

21551

7.9

59

21641

9.3

60

21732

.3

61

21824

1.1

62

21916

9.3

63

22007

-2.1

64

22098

2

65

22190

-5

66

22282

2.7

67

22372

7

68

22463

7.9

69

22555

8.1

70

22647

7.3

71

22737

3.7

72

22828

5

73

22920

1.3

74

23012

4.4

75

23102

4.6

76

23193

9.1

77

23285

2.6

78

23377

8.7

79

23468

4.4

80

23559

6.4

81

23651

1.2

82

23743

10

83

23833

5.1

84

23924

9.2

85

24016

9.5

86

24108

10.1

87

24198

1.4

88

24289

3.4

89

24381

3.3

90

24473

3.6

91

24563

.2

92

24654

3.8

93

24746

3

94

24838

8.4

95

24929

6.9

96

25020

3.1

97

25112

1.6

98

25204

6.4

99

25294

1.2

100

25385

2.7

[novinosrin]

if the values are all numbers but are stored as char, keep it simple as you learn

/*convert char to num*/

data num_result;

set input_dataset;

num_var1=input(char_var1,8.);

num_var2=input(char_var2,8.);/*and so on*/

run;

Then use the num_result dataset as input in your proc means as discussed previously

[ASerrato]

Thank you!!

[Tom]

That explains why PROC MEANS was only showing you the number of observations. You need to have numeric variables to be able to calculate statistics like MEAN.