In the earlier versions of SAS, Proc Means and Summary had distinct features. Over the last few versions, the only difference between the two procedures are as follows:
- Proc Means outputs the results in the listing window or in any other open output destination, whereas Proc Summary creates a dataset by default. You cannot execute a Proc Summary without an output statement.
- In the absence of a Var statement, Proc Means analyzes all numeric variables. Proc Summary, in the same situation, only produces a count of the observations.