Last year, I wrote more than 100 posts for The DO Loop blog. Of these, the most popular articles were about data visualization, SAS programming tips, and statistical data analysis. Here are the most popular articles from 2018 in each category. Data Visualization Visualize repetition in song lyrics: In one
You might know that you can use the ODS SELECT statement to display only some of the tables and graphs that are created by a SAS procedure. But did you know that you can use a WHERE clause on the ODS SELECT statement to display tables that match a pattern?
A useful feature in PROC SGPLOT is the ability to easily visualize subgroups of data. Most statements in the SGPLOT procedure support a GROUP= option that enables you to overlay plots of subgroups. When you use the GROUP= option, observations are assigned attributes (colors, line patterns, symbols, ...) that indicate
A programmer recently asked a question on a SAS discussion forum about design matrices for categorical variables. He had generated a design matrix by using PROC GLMMOD and wanted to use the design columns in a subsequent procedure. However, the columns were named COL1, COL2, COL3,..., so he couldn't tell
My 2018 SAS Global Forum paper was about "how to use the random-number generators (RNGs) in SAS." You can read the paper for details, but I recently recorded a short video that summarizes the main ideas in the paper. In particular, the video gives an overview of the new RNGs
In SAS, the reserved keyword _NULL_ specifies a SAS data set that has no observations and no variables. When you specify _NULL_ as the name of an output data set, the output is not written. The _NULL_ data set is often used when you want to execute DATA step code
The SAS language provides syntax that enables you to quickly specify a list of variables. SAS statements that accept variable lists include the KEEP and DROP statements, the ARRAY statement, and the OF operator for comma-separated arguments to some functions. You can also use variable lists on the VAR statements
In a recent blog post, Chris Hemedinger used a scatter plot to show the result of 100 coin tosses. Chris arranged the 100 results in a 10 x 10 grid, where the first 10 results were shown on the first row, the second 10 were shown on the second row, and so
My article about the difference between CLASS variables and BY variables in SAS focused on SAS analytical procedures. However, the BY statement is also useful in the SAS DATA step where it is used to merge data sets and to analyze data at the group level. When you use the
When I first learned to program in SAS, I remember being confused about the difference between CLASS statements and BY statements. A novice SAS programmer recently asked when to use one instead of the other, so this article explains the difference between the CLASS statement and BY variables in SAS
