· Suppose you are given a list of ID codes for some subjects in a study. All you have are the IDs but you need to extract contact information from a SAS data set. The data set containing the information that you need is the "table" and the ID codes you have are what you need to "lookup". You may accomplish the above using match merging.
· Suppose you wish to convert one code to another. For example, in your data set a "1" may refer to a "male" and a "2" to a "female". You want a variable containing "male" and "female." The "table" contains the relationship between the number and character representations. Your data with the "1s" and "2s" is what you need to "lookup." You may accomplish this with a format and with put & input functions.
