In a SAS program, how is a comment statement formatted?

In SAS, a comment statement is formatted primarily using an asterisk followed by the comment text and ending with a semicolon. This allows the programmer to include notes or explanations within the code that are ignored during execution. The comment will continue until the semicolon is encountered, making it a straightforward way to annotate lines within your SAS program.

Although there are other valid ways to write comments in SAS, such as using the slash and asterisk combination (which allows for multi-line comments), the format specified in the correct answer is the one most commonly used for single-line comments. The functionality of that format is really beneficial for keeping code organized and readable, especially for future reference or for other programmers who might work with the same code.

While other formats for comments exist, they are not the conventional style for a SAS program. For example, using double asterisks or hash symbols are not recognized as valid comment statements within the SAS language, which is why they do not represent the correct answer.