The DELETE statement drops the specified SAS variables before the DBMS table is created. The variable-identifier argument can be either the SAS variable name or the positional equivalent from the LIST statement. The positional equivalent is the number that represents the variable's place in the data set. For example, if you want to drop the third variable, submit this statement:

delete 3;

When you drop a variable, the positional equivalents of the variables do not change. For example, if you drop the second variable, the third variable is still referenced by the number 3, not 2. If you drop more than one variable, separate the identifiers with spaces, not commas.