Creating a Formats File with PROC FORMAT (GET SAS command)

The following is an example of how to create a SAS format catalog file:

libname mylib 'c:\mydir\' ;

proc format library = mylib ;
value YesNo
  0='No'
  1='Yes' ;   
value HighLow
   1 = 'Low'  
   2 = 'Medium'  
   3 = 'High' ;
    
options  fmtsearch=(mylib);

proc datasets library = mylib ;
modify mydata;
   format    var1 var2 var3 YesNo.;
   format    var4 var5 var6 HighLow.;
   
quit;

• libname defines a "library," which is a directory path.
• proc format defines two formats: YesNo and HighLow. Each format defines a set of value labels associated with data values.
• proc datasets identifies the data file--mydata--and the variables to which each of the defined formats should be applied. So the YesNo format is applied to variables var1, var2, and var3, and the HighLow format is applied to the variables var4, var5, and var6.
• This creates the SAS catalog file c:\mydir\formats.sas7bcat.