Reading data extracts into SAS

SAS as a program provides a lot of different functionalities for handling datasets in any format. However, this leads to some complexity in coding, even when using SAS's native dataset formats. This section covers the following:

• SAS's native dataset format, *.SAS7bdat

• How to optimally use SAS's WORK directory

• How to specify and use LIBNAME for reading SAS data from a physical location

• How to read datasets in *.SAS7bdat format into SAS

This section will give you working knowledge of how to use LIBNAME to read in datasets in *.SAS7bdat format that are stored outside of the SAS environment.

Understanding SAS datasets

Up until now, when talking about data storage in SAS, we were talking mainly about reading data into the working memory of SAS. When a SAS session is started and data is read into SAS's working memory, it is said to be in the WORK directory. This directory will go away when the session ends...