In your SAS reports, formats control how the data values are displayed. To make data values more understandable when they are displayed in your procedure output, you can use the FORMAT statement, which associates formats with variables.

Formats affect only how the data values appear in output, not the actual data values as they are stored in the SAS data set.

You can use a separate FORMAT statement for each variable, or you can format several variables (using either the same format or different formats) in a single FORMAT statement.

format date mmddyy8.;

format net comma5.0
       gross comma8.2;

format net gross dollar9.2;

For example, the FORMAT statement below writes values of the variable Fee using dollar signs, commas, and no decimal places.

proc print data=cert.admit;
  var actlevel fee;
  where actlevel='HIGH';
  format fee dollar4.;
run;

The table below describes some SAS formats that are commonly used in reports.

All SAS formats specify the total field width (w) that is used for displaying the values in the output. For example, suppose the longest value for the variable Net is a four-digit number, such as 5400. To specify the COMMAw.d format for Net, you specify a field width of 5 or more. You must count the comma, because it occupies a position in the output.

For numeric variables, you can also specify the number of decimal places (d), if any, to be displayed in the output. Numbers are rounded to the specified number of decimal places. In the example above, no decimal places are displayed.

Writing the whole number 2030 as 2,030.00 requires eight print positions, including two decimal places and the decimal point.

Formatting 15374 with a dollar sign, commas, and two decimal places requires 10 print positions.

This table shows you how data values are displayed when different format, field width, and decimal place specifications are used.