What does the VAR statement do in PROC PRINT?

What does the VAR statement do in PROC PRINT?

• A. It filters observations based on conditions
• B. It selects the variables to include in the report
• C. It creates new variable definitions
• D. It sorts the data set before printing

Answer: (B)

The VAR statement in PROC PRINT is specifically designed to select which variables from a dataset will be included in the printed report. When using the VAR statement, you list the variable names of interest, and SAS will only print these specified variables while excluding all others from the output. This feature is particularly useful when dealing with large datasets where only a subset of variables is necessary for analysis or presentation purposes. The other options address different functionalities within SAS programming. For example, filtering observations based on conditions typically involves the WHERE statement, rather than the VAR statement. The creation of new variable definitions is done using the DATA step or VAR and COMPUTE blocks, and sorting data for a report before printing is handled by the PROC SORT procedure, not by PROC PRINT. Therefore, the VAR statement's primary role is to explicitly define the variables to output in the PROC PRINT report.

The VAR statement in PROC PRINT is specifically designed to select which variables from a dataset will be included in the printed report. When using the VAR statement, you list the variable names of interest, and SAS will only print these specified variables while excluding all others from the output. This feature is particularly useful when dealing with large datasets where only a subset of variables is necessary for analysis or presentation purposes.

The other options address different functionalities within SAS programming. For example, filtering observations based on conditions typically involves the WHERE statement, rather than the VAR statement. The creation of new variable definitions is done using the DATA step or VAR and COMPUTE blocks, and sorting data for a report before printing is handled by the PROC SORT procedure, not by PROC PRINT. Therefore, the VAR statement's primary role is to explicitly define the variables to output in the PROC PRINT report.