Statistical Analysis System (SAS) Programming Certification Practice Exam 2026 – The All-in-One Guide to Master Your Certification!

The INPUT function in SAS is specifically designed to convert character values into numeric values. This is essential when working with data that may originally be captured or stored as text but needs to be treated numerically for analysis or calculations. For instance, if a dataset contains a variable representing numbers stored as strings (like "123"), the INPUT function can transform those character representations into actual numeric types, allowing mathematical operations to be performed without errors.

This functionality is crucial when importing data from external sources like spreadsheets or databases where numeric values may inadvertently be stored as text. By using the INPUT function, users can ensure that their data is in the correct format for processing and analysis within SAS.

Other functions mentioned, such as converting numeric to character or reading data into a dataset, perform different roles and do not provide the same capability to facilitate numeric operations on character data. Similarly, the formatting of values for display involves different functions that manage how data is presented rather than how it is converted between types.