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Understanding and Customizing SAS Output: The Output Delivery System (ODS)

Selecting the Output That You Want to Format

Identifying Output

Program output, in the form of output objects, contain both the results of a procedure or DATA step and information about how to format the results. To select an output object for formatting, you need to know which output objects your program creates. To identify the output objects, use the ODS TRACE statement. The simplest form of the ODS TRACE statement is as follows:

ODS TRACE ON|OFF;

ODS TRACE determines whether to write to the SAS log a record of each output object that a program creates. The ON option writes the trace record to the log, and the OFF option suppresses the writing of the trace record.

The trace record has the following components:

Name	is the name of the output object.
Label	is the label that briefly describes the contents of the output object.
Template	is the name of the table definition that ODS used to format the output object.
Path	shows the location of the output object.

In the ODS SELECT statement in your program, you can refer to an output object by name, label, or path.

The following program executes the UNIVARIATE procedure and writes a trace record to the SAS log.

ods trace on;

proc univariate data=sat_scores;
   var SATscore;
   class Gender;
   title1 'Average SAT Scores Entering College Classes, 1972-1998*';
   footnote1 '* Recentered Scale for 1987-1995';
run;

ods trace off;

The following output shows the results of ODS TRACE. Two sets of output objects are listed because the program uses the class variable Gender to separate male and female results. The path component of the output objects identifies the female (f) and male (m) objects.

ODS TRACE Output in the Log

403  ods trace on;
404  
405  proc univariate data=sat_scores;
406     var SATscore;
407     class Gender;
408     title1 'Average SAT Scores Entering College Classes, 1972-1998*';
409     footnote1 '* Recentered Scale for 1987-1995';
410  run;

Output Added:
-------------
Name:       Moments
Label:      Moments
Template:   base.univariate.Moments
Path:       Univariate.SATscore.f.Moments
                
Output Added:
-------------
Name:       BasicMeasures
Label:      Basic Measures of Location and Variability
Template:   base.univariate.Measures
Path:       Univariate.SATscore.f.BasicMeasures
-------------

Output Added:
-------------
Name:       TestsForLocation
Label:      Tests For Location
Template:   base.univariate.Location
Path:       Univariate.SATscore.f.TestsForLocation
-------------

Output Added:
-------------
Name:       Quantiles
Label:      Quantiles
Template:   base.univariate.Quantiles
Path:       Univariate.SATscore.f.Quantiles
-------------

Output Added:
-------------
Name:       ExtremeObs
Label:      Extreme Observations
Template:   base.univariate.ExtObs
Path:       Univariate.SATscore.f.ExtremeObs
-------------

Output Added:
-------------
Name:       Moments
Label:      Moments
Template:   base.univariate.Moments
Path:       Univariate.SATscore.m.Moments
-------------

Output Added:
-------------
Name:       BasicMeasures
Label:      Basic Measures of Location and Variability
Template:   base.univariate.Measures
Path:       Univariate.SATscore.m.BasicMeasures
-------------

Output Added:
-------------
Name:       TestsForLocation
Label:      Tests For Location
Template:   base.univariate.Location
Path:       Univariate.SATscore.m.TestsForLocation
-------------

Output Added:
-------------
Name:       Quantiles
Label:      Quantiles
Template:   base.univariate.Quantiles
Path:       Univariate.SATscore.m.Quantiles
-------------

Output Added:
-------------
Name:       ExtremeObs
Label:      Extreme Observations
Template:   base.univariate.ExtObs
Path:       Univariate.SATscore.m.ExtremeObs
-------------
411  
412  ods trace off;

Selecting and Excluding Program Output

For each destination, ODS maintains a selection list or an exclusion list. The selection list is a list of output objects that produce formatted output. The exclusion list is a list of output objects for which no output is produced.

You can select and exclude output objects by specifying the destination in an ODS SELECT or ODS EXCLUDE statement. If you do not specify a destination, ODS sends output to all open destinations.

Selection and exclusion lists can be modified and reset at different points in a SAS session, such as at procedure boundaries. If you end each procedure with an explicit QUIT statement, rather than waiting for the next PROC or DATA step to end it for you, the QUIT statement resets the selection list.

To choose one or more output objects and send them to open ODS destinations, use the ODS SELECT statement. The simplest form of the ODS SELECT statement is as follows:

ODS SELECT <ODS-destination> output-object(s);

The argument ODS-destination identifies the output format, and output-object specifies one or more output objects to add to a selection list.

To exclude one or more output objects from being sent to open destinations, use the ODS EXCLUDE statement. The simplest form of the ODS EXCLUDE statement is as follows:

ODS EXCLUDE <ODS-destination> output-object(s);

The argument ODS-destination identifies the output format, and output-object specifies one or more output objects to add to an exclusion list.

The following example executes the UNIVARIATE procedure and creates 10 output objects. The ODS SELECT statement uses the name component in the trace records to select only the BasicMeasures and the TestsForLocation output objects. Because the HTML and Printer destinations are open, ODS creates HTML and Printer output from the output objects.

options nodate pageno=1;

ods listing close;
ods html file='odsselect-body.htm'  
         contents='odsselect-contents.htm'
         page='odsselect-page.htm'
         frame='odsselect-frame.htm';
ods printer file='odsprinter-select.ps';

ods select BasicMeasures TestsForLocation; 
proc univariate data=sat_scores;
   var SATscore;
   class Gender; 
   title1 'Average SAT Scores Entering College Classes, 1972-1998*'; 
   footnote1 '* Recentered Scale for 1987-1995'; 
run;

ods html close;
ods printer close;
ods listing;

The following two displays show the results in Printer format. They show the Basic Statistical Measures and Tests for Location tables based on gender.

ODS SELECT Statement: Printer Format (females)

ODS SELECT Statement: Printer Format (males)

The following two displays show the results in HTML format. They, too, show the Basic Statistical Measures and Tests for Location tables based on gender.

ODS SELECT Statement: HTML Format (females)

ODS SELECT Statement: HTML Format (males)

Creating a SAS Data Set

ODS enables you to create a SAS data set from an output object. To create a single output data set, use the following form of the ODS OUTPUT statement:

ODS OUTPUT output-object(s)=SAS-data-set;

The argument output-object specifies one or more output objects to turn into a SAS data set, and SAS-data-set specifies the data set that you want to create.

In the following program, ODS opens the Output destination and creates the SAS data set MYFILE.MEASURES from the output object BasicMeasures. ODS then closes the Output destination.

libname myfile 'SAS-data-library';

ods listing close; 1 
ods output BasicMeasures=myfile.measures; 2 

proc univariate data=sat_scores; 3 
   var SATscore;
   class Gender; 
run;

ods output close; 4 
ods listing; 5 

The following list corresponds to the numbered items in the preceding program:

	By default, the Listing destination is open. To conserve resources, the ODS LISTING CLOSE statement closes this destination.
	The ODS OUTPUT statement opens the Output destination and specifies the permanent data set to create from the output object BasicMeasures.
	The UNIVARIATE procedure produces summary statistics for the average SAT scores of entering first-year college students. The output is grouped by the CLASS variable Gender.
	The ODS OUTPUT CLOSE statement closes the Output destination.
	The ODS LISTING statement reopens the default Listing destination so that the next program that you run can produce Listing output.

The following SAS log shows that the MYFILE.MEASURES data set was created with the ODS OUTPUT statement:

Partial SAS Log: SAS Data Set Creation

404  libname myfile 'SAS-data-library';
NOTE: Libref MYFILE was successfully assigned as follows: 
      Engine:        V8 
      Physical Name: path-name
405  ods listing close;
406  ods output BasicMeasures=myfile.measures;
407  
408  proc univariate data=sat_scores;
409     var SATscore;
410     class Gender;
411  run;
NOTE: The data set MYFILE.MEASURES has 8 observations and 6 variables.

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