You can specify a BY statement with PROC SURVEYFREQ to obtain separate analyses of observations in groups defined by the BY variables. The variables are one or more variables in the input data set.

Note that using a BY statement provides completely separate analyses of the BY groups. It does not provide a statistically valid subpopulation or domain analysis, where the total number of units in the subpopulation is not known with certainty. You should include the domain variable(s) in your TABLES request to obtain domain analysis. See the section Domain Analysis for more details.

If you specify more than one BY statement, the procedure uses only the last BY statement and ignores any previous BY statements.

When you use a BY statement, the procedure expects the input data set to be sorted in order of the BY variables. If your input data set is not sorted in ascending order, use one of the following alternatives:

• Sort the data by using the SORT procedure with a similar BY statement.

• Specify the option NOTSORTED or DESCENDING in the BY statement. The NOTSORTED option does not mean that the data are unsorted but rather that the data are arranged in groups (according to values of the BY variables) and that these groups are not necessarily in alphabetical or increasing numeric order.

• Create an index on the BY variables by using the DATASETS procedure.

For more information about the BY statement, see SAS Language Reference: Concepts. For more information about the DATASETS procedure, see the Base SAS Procedures Guide.