The DATA step is used to describe and modify your data. In it you tell SAS how to read data, create variables, delete observations, change variable values, and limit analysis to relevant data. SAS datasets are the common element between DATA steps and PROC steps. All of SAS's many PROC steps begin with a line containing the PROC statement. That may be followed by one or more lines further refining the procedure.
Some procedures allow certain options to be specified as well.
But all statements must be separated by semicolons. Running SAS SAS on Unix runs in much the same way as SAS on other computing platforms. To demonstrate this you can refer to the short SAS program below named sample.sas . It reads raw data from a Unix file called raw.data and saves a SAS system file. A file called sample.log will be created that contains information about the job you just ran and may include error messages.