The DISTANCE Procedure

OUT= Data Set

The DISTANCE procedure always produces an output data set, regardless of whether you specify the OUT= option in the PROC DISTANCE statement. PROC DISTANCE displays no output. Use PROC PRINT to display the output data set.

The output data set contains the following variables:

• the ID variable, if any

• the BY variables, if any

• the COPY variables, if any

• the FREQ variable, if any

• the WEIGHT variable, if any

• the new distance variables, named from PREFIX= options along with the ID values, or from the default values

The output data set is of type TYPE=DISTANCE or TYPE=SIMILAR. See the METHOD= option for more information about the output data set types. Data set types do not persist when you copy or modify a data set. You must specify the TYPE= data set option for the new data set, as in the following example:

data dist2(type=distance);
   set dist;
run;

See the OUT= option for more information about data set type persistence.

OUTSDZ= Data Set

The output data set is a copy of the DATA= data set except that the analyzed variables have been standardized. Analyzed variables are those listed in the VAR statement.