Programming Language
http://basesasonlinetraining.blogspot.com/2015/08/programming-language.html
Elements of the SAS Language
The statements that formed the data set
WEIGHT_CLUB are part of the SAS programming language. The SAS language contains
statements, expressions, functions and CALL routines, options, formats, and in
formats – elements that many programming languages split. However, the way you
use the elements of the SAS language depends on convinced programming rules.
The most important rules are listed in the next two sections.
Rules
for SAS Statements
The conventions that are shown in the
programs in this documentation, such as indenting of subordinate statements,
extra spacing, and blank lines, are for the purpose of clarity and ease of use.
They are not necessary by SAS. There are only a few rules for writing SAS
statements:
..SAS statements end with a semicolon.
…You can enter SAS statements in
lowercase, uppercase, or a mixture of the two.
..You can begin SAS statements in any
column of a line and write several statements on the same line.
…You can begin a statement on one line
and continue it on another line, but you cannot split a word between two lines.
..Words in SAS statements are divided by
blanks or by special characters (such as the equal sign and the minus sign in
the calculation of the Loss variable in the WEIGHT_CLUB example).
Rules for Most SAS Names
SAS names are used for SAS data set
names, variable names, and other items. The following rules apply:
..A SAS name can contain from one to 32
characters.
..The first character must be a letter
or an underscore (_).
..Subsequent characters must be letters,
numbers, or underscores.
..Blanks cannot appear in SAS names.
Special
Rules for Variable Names
For variable names simply,
SAS remembers the combination of uppercase and lowercase letters that you use
when you create the variable name. Internally, the case of letters does not
matter. “CAT,” “cat,” and “Cat” all represent the same variable. But for
presentation purposes, SAS remembers the initial case of each letter and uses
it to represent the variable name when printing it.
