Exporting table properties

[mczeg]

Is there any way to export a datasets properties to excel?  What I mean by this is that in EG if you right click on a data set, select properties and then the columns tab, SAS displays the Name, Type, Length, Format, etc for that table.  I'm looking for a way to export this exact same data into excel in order to create a type of quick reference/data dictionary.  Is anyone aware if this is possible?

Thank you

[Reeza]

There's a couple of different ways - one is to write a proc contents and export those results to excel.

proc contents data=have;run;

[ChrisHemedinger · Accepted solution]

For adhoc applications, you can simply copy/paste the attributes from the Data summary into Excel.

For a programming approach, you can output the details in PROC DATASETS and export to Excel using either PROC EXPORT or ODS EXCEL:

proc datasets lib=sashelp nolist  ;
  contents data=class out=work.classattr;
quit;

/* requires SAS/ACCESS to PC Files */
proc export data=classattr  
  file="c:\temp\attr.xlsx" 
   dbms=xlsx replace;
run;

/* Base SAS in 9.4m2 or later */
ods excel file="c:\temp\attr_ods.xlsx" ;
  proc print data=classattr; run;
ods excel close;

Chris

[LinusH]

Also, you can get this information from SASHELP.Vxxxx views, which holds inforamtion for all datasets/views available to the SAS session. VSTABLE and VCOLUMN if remember correctly could be of interest.

[mczeg]

Thanks all for the information