Proc Contents Input/Output

[buechler66]

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. 

[PeterClemmensen]

Something like this is probably the simplest

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

[buechler66]

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

[PeterClemmensen · Accepted solution]

Sure thing 🙂

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

[buechler66]

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

[buechler66]

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

[novinosrin]

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.