SAS/GRAPH PROC Step

A group of SAS procedure statements is called a PROC step. The PROC step consists of all the statements, variables, and options that are contained within the (beginning) PROC such as proc gplot in line 5 in Figure: Typical SAS Program

such as proc gplot in line 5 in Figure: Typical SAS Program

and (ending) RUN as illustrated in line 7 in Figure: Typical SAS Program

statements of a procedure. These statements can identify and analyze the data in SAS data sets. They can generate the graphics output and control the appearance of the output. Statements can define variables and perform other operations on your data. You can also specify global statements and options within the PROC step to customize the appearance of your graph. However, it is often more efficient to specify global statements before the PROC step.

Procedure Statement

The procedure statement such as proc gplot in line 5 in Figure: Typical SAS Program

identifies which procedure you are invoking (for example, GCHART, GMAP, or GCONTOUR) and identifies which input data set is to be used.

Subordinate Statement

Subordinate statements see line 6 in Figure: Typical SAS Program

are statements used within the procedure that perform the work of the procedure. Subordinate statements that generate graphs are called action statements. At least one action statement is required for a procedure to produce a graph. Examples of action statements are the HBAR statement in the GCHART procedure and the BUBBLE statement in the GPLOT procedure.

Non-action statements are those that do not generate graphs. The GRID statement in PROC G3GRID and the DELETE statement in PROC GDEVICE are examples of non-action statements.

Other Statements and Options

There are many options such as HAXIS, TO, and BY in line 10 in Figure: Typical SAS Program

that you can specify within the PROC step to control your graphics output. PROC step options always follow the forward slash (/) following the action statement of the procedure. These options might control such things as axis characteristics, midpoint values, statistics, catalog entry descriptions, or appearance elements of your graph. Take, for example, the SUBGROUP= option in the BLOCK statement of the GCHART procedure. The option tells the procedure to divide the graph's bars into segments according to the values of the SUBGROUP= variable. The HAXIS option in the PLOT statement of the GPLOT procedure, as shown in Typical SAS/GRAPH Program, specifies where to draw the major tick mark values for the horizontal axis.