The FORMAT statement assigns formats to variables in output data sets. The variable-list can contain variable names and variable name range specifications. See Variable Lists for details. The format specified applies to all variables in the variable list.

A single FORMAT statement can assign the same format to several variables or different formats to different variables. The FORMAT statement can use standard SAS formats or formats defined using the FORMAT procedure.

Any later format specification for a variable, using either the FORMAT statement or the FORMAT= option in the ATTRIBUTE statement, always overrides the previous one.