What type of data does PROC MEANS focus on summarizing?

PROC MEANS is specifically designed to summarize numeric variables. When using this procedure, it computes descriptive statistics such as mean, median, standard deviation, minimum, maximum, and more for the numeric data provided in the dataset. This makes it a powerful tool for statistical analysis where understanding the distribution and characteristics of numeric data is essential.

While categorical variables can be summarized in different ways, such as using PROC FREQ for frequency counts, PROC MEANS does not handle them directly in terms of calculating numeric statistics. Other variable types like date variables are technically numeric under the hood in SAS, but PROC MEANS is used primarily for quantitative analysis rather than date-specific operations. Therefore, the focus of PROC MEANS is clearly on numeric variables, as it provides the necessary tools for summarizing and analyzing their statistical properties.