How can you output the results of a procedure to an external file?

Utilizing the ODS (Output Delivery System) statements is the correct approach for outputting the results of a procedure to an external file in SAS. The ODS provides a systematic way to direct output to various destinations, including HTML files, RTF documents, Excel spreadsheets, and plain text files.

When you use ODS statements, you can specify the desired format and file destination. For example, you can open an ODS HTML destination with a specific file path and name it, allowing you to capture the output from procedures directly into an HTML file. This flexibility makes ODS a powerful tool for managing the output of statistical analyses, reports, and visualizations in a structured format.

In contrast, while the CLASS statement is useful for organizing data within procedures, it does not influence how results are exported or formatted for external files. Similarly, creating a temporary data set is primarily related to data manipulation and storage within SAS rather than exporting procedure results. The FILE statement is specific to writing data to external files during data steps but does not apply directly to the output of statistical procedures, which is better handled through ODS.