Which procedure would you use to create frequency counts in SAS?

The procedure used to create frequency counts in SAS is PROC FREQ. This procedure specifically computes frequency tables and provides useful insights into the distribution of categorical variables. It can generate counts of the number of occurrences for each distinct value within a variable, as well as percentages and cumulative percentages.

PROC FREQ is particularly valuable in exploratory data analysis, allowing users to understand data distributions comprehensively. It can also produce cross-tabulations of two or more categorical variables, enhancing the analysis of relationships between them.

While PROC TABULATE can also create summary tables, its primary function is to produce complex summary reports rather than straightforward frequency counts. PROC MEANS is designed for numeric data and computes descriptive statistics like means and standard deviations, making it unsuitable for frequency counts. PROC PRINT, on the other hand, is used to print the data set but does not perform any statistical analysis useful for obtaining frequency counts. This distinction highlights why PROC FREQ is the ideal choice for this task.