A00-215 Exam Dumps : SAS Certified Associate: Programming Fundamentals Using SAS 9.4

The DROP statement during the compilation phase of the DATA step flags variables in the Program Data Vector (PDV) to be dropped when the data set is output. This means that although the variables exist in the PDV during the DATA step execution, they will not be written to the output data set. The DROP statement does not affect the order of variables (which is the purpose of the ORDER= data set option), nor does it remove variables from the input data set or prevent them from being created in the PDV.

References:

• SAS documentation on the DROP statement.

In the provided image of the SAS code for the PROC PRINT step, the following statements are present:

• proc print data=sashelp.cars; - PROC PRINT step beginning
• var Make Model MSRP MPG_City MPG_Highway Horsepower Weight; - VAR statement to specify variables to print
• format Weight comma8.; - FORMAT statement to apply a format to a variable
• The final run; statement which would be necessary to execute the PROC PRINT step is not visible in the image, but it can be inferred to be there since every PROC step must be ended with a run; or quit; statement.

Thus, there are four statements related to the PROC PRINT step.

References:

• SAS 9.4 Language Reference: Concepts, "PROC PRINT"
• SAS documentation on "VAR Statement" and "FORMAT Statement"

In SAS, the code you provided involves creating two datasets, table1 and table2, from the dataset sashelp.shoes. The key part to understand here is how the DATA statement and OUTPUT statement interact with the specified datasets.

• DATA Statement: The statement data table1 table2; initiates the creation of two new datasets named table1 and table2.
• SET Statement: The set sashelp.shoes; statement is used to read data from the sashelp.shoes dataset. This dataset includes data on shoe sales from SASHELP library, which is commonly used for demonstration purposes in SAS.
• OUTPUT Statement: In the context of the DATA step where multiple datasets are specified in the DATA statement (as in table1 table2), the OUTPUT statement without a dataset name specified outputs the current observation to all datasets listed in the DATA statement. This is a critical point because it determines where the data goes after processing in the DATA step.
• Execution: When the run; statement is executed, it processes each observation from sashelp.shoes. For each observation, because there is no condition or additional OUTPUT statements specifying dataset names, each observation is output to both table1 and table2.

Therefore, the correct behavior as described is that each observation in sashelp.shoes is written to both table1 and table2. This effectively duplicates each row from the source into both target datasets.

References:

• SAS 9.4 Language Reference: Concepts, "DATA Step Processing" and "OUTPUT Statement" sections provide detailed explanations on how DATA steps process and how OUTPUT statement works in different contexts.
• Practical examples and explanations from SAS programming courses and official SAS documentation, which discuss DATA and SET statements, and their interaction with OUTPUT in data duplication scenarios.