Removing formats

Formats are useful for labeling output. However, they can be bothersome when a programmer is debugging a recode. Rather than seeing the 'new' variable value and the 'input' variable values such as:

   Recode    Variable 1           Variable 6           Variable 9
      3          1                    1                    1
      2          1                    2                    4

With formats 'turned on' the results of a PROC PRINT will look like this:

   Recode    Variable 1           Variable 6           Variable 9
      3      very much agrees     very much agrees     Catholic       
      2      very much agrees     agrees               Methodist

If you want to get rid of labels for selected variables:

FORMATS VAR1 VAR6 VAR9;
PROC PRINT;
   VAR1 VAR6 VAR9;

If you want to get rid of the tags for all variables:

FORMATS _ ALL _;
PROC FREQ;

If you want to save a version of the data that has no labels (formats):

LIB NEWNAME;
    SET OLDNAME;
FORMATS _ ALL _;

The file newname.ssd01 will not have formats, oldname.ssd01 will.