What does the LENGTH statement in SAS do?

The LENGTH statement in SAS is specifically used to define the length of variable storage within a dataset. By specifying the length, you can control how much memory is allocated for each variable, particularly for character variables. This can be important because it allows optimization of memory usage and can influence the performance of your SAS programs. For example, if you know that a character variable will never exceed a certain number of characters, you can set the LENGTH to that maximum value, which helps minimize waste of memory resources.

This statement does not define the number of observations, set the type of the dataset, or allocate memory for the dataset as a whole, making the correct understanding of its function key to effective data management in SAS.