2.2 A SAS Program


A SAS program consists of the following parts:

JCL

    The z/OS JCL statements needed to identify a job and call
    SAS.

DATA STEPS

    The place where you tell SAS how to set up your data for
    analysis.  You describe input and the manipulation
    required to produce new variables, write your own
    reports, and most importantly, produce a SAS data set for
    manipulation by SAS procedures.

PROC STEPS

    The place where you tell SAS what analysis to perform on
    the data set created in the DATA STEP and what output
    format to use to display the results.

OUTPUT

    There are three types of output from a SAS job:

    SAS LOG

        This is a printout of the SAS statements you have
        used, along with any messages produced by SAS.

    Output from PROC Statements

        This can be a simple listing of the data (from PROC
        PRINT) or a complex table or chart.

    User Produced Output

        This is output from the DATA STEP (using FILE and
        PUT).

In summary, a SAS program is a collection of DATA STEPS
and PROC STEPS, where DATA STEPS are used to create SAS data
sets (and sometimes direct print output) and PROC STEPS are
used to perform analysis on those data sets.