PROC DATASETS (copy, move, kill, save, modify, rename, delete datasets)

PROC DATASETS is one of the important procedures in SAS.

It is very much useful in managing SAS datasets in bulk without actually changing the data .

Its usefulness lies in that unlike data step it wont iterate the observations instead will work directly on the metadata to do the changes.

Hence it is much more efficient and powerful than most of its counter parts.

With the following discussion we will look at each of the important tasks which can be carried out using PROC DATASETS.

Here we are going to learn following topics

• 1. CONTENTS in PROC DATASETS to view the contents of the Library.

  2. MODIFY / CHANGE / RENAME /FORMAT in PROC DATASETS to modify the SAS Dataset properties.

  3. APEEND in PROC DATASETS for appending datasets to each other.

  4. COPY and MOVE in PROC DATASETS for copying or moving datasets between libraries

  5. DELETE in PROC DATASETS for deleting some datasets from the library

  6. KILL in PROC DATASETS for deleting all the datasets from the library