Delete specific sas datasets from a library

When writing complex programs or macros we frequently want to delete some specific intermediate datasets created.

Proc datasets can be used to achieve this.

proc datasets library=work memtype=data;

delete class2;

run;

quit;

• library= option is used to the name of the required library
• memtype=data is used on proc datasets statement to specify that only sas datasets are to be considered for deletion
• delete statement of proc datasets is used to specify the names of the datasets to be deleted from the library
• when multiple datasets are to be deleted, we can specify the list of datasets separated by space on delete statement
• we can even use shorthand notation of dataset naming convention on delete statement
  • for example, if we want to delete all the datasets which begin with the text 'cl', we can use 'delete cl: ;'