The DO Loop

Programming Tips

Strengthen your programming skills with tips and techniques from the experts

Programming Tips

Rick WicklinMay 18, 2020 0

I've previously written about linear interpolation in one dimension. Bilinear interpolation is a method for two-dimensional interpolation on a rectangle. If the value of a function is known at the four corners of a rectangle, an interpolation scheme gives you a way to estimate the function at any point in

English

Analytics | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinMay 11, 2020 0

Cubic spline interpolation in SAS

I recently showed how to use linear interpolation in SAS. Linear interpolation is a common way to interpolate between a set of planar points, but the interpolating function (the interpolant) is not smooth. If you want a smoother interpolant, you can use cubic spline interpolation. This article describes how to

English

Analytics | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinMay 4, 2020 0

Linear interpolation in SAS

SAS programmers sometimes ask about ways to perform one-dimensional linear interpolation in SAS. This article shows three ways to perform linear interpolation in SAS: PROC IML (in SAS/IML software), PROC EXPAND (in SAS/ETS software), and PROC TRANSREG (in SAS/STAT software). Of these, PROC IML Is the simplest to use and

English

Analytics | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinApril 27, 2020 2

The circular law for eigenvalues

I've previously written about how to generate points that are uniformly distributed in the unit disk. A seemingly unrelated topic is the distribution of eigenvalues (in the complex plane) of various kinds of random matrices. However, I recently learned that these topics are somewhat related! A mathematical result called the

English

Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinMarch 18, 2020 4

Print SAS/IML variables with formats

A SAS/IML programmer asked about the best way to print multiple SAS/IML variables when each variable needs a different format. He wanted the output to resemble the "Parameter Estimates" table that is produced by PROC REG and other SAS/STAT procedures. This article shows four ways to print SAS/IML vectors in

English

Analytics | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinMarch 16, 2020 2

Predict a random integer: The tradeoff between bias and variance

Books about statistics and machine learning often discuss the tradeoff between bias and variance for an estimator. These discussions are often motivated by a sophisticated predictive model such as a regression or a decision tree. But the basic idea can be seen in much simpler situations. This article presents a

English

Advanced Analytics | Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinMarch 9, 2020 2

ROC curves for a binormal sample

In a previous article, I discussed the binormal model for a binary classification problem. This model assumes a set of scores that are normally distributed for each population, and the mean of the scores for the Negative population is less than the mean of scores for the Positive population. I

English

Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinMarch 4, 2020 0

Store pre-computed matrices in a list

Suppose that a data set contains a set of parameter values. For each row of parameters, you need to perform some computation. A recent discussion on the SAS Support Communities mentions an important point: if there are duplicate rows in the data, a program might repeat the same computation several

English

Programming Tips

Rick WicklinFebruary 24, 2020 5

Visualization of a binary classification analysis

The purpose of this article is to show how to use SAS to create a graph that illustrates a basic idea in a binary classification analysis, such as discriminant analysis and logistic regression. The graph, shown at right, shows two populations. Subjects in the "negative" population do not have some

English

Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinFebruary 19, 2020 3

A list of SAS DATA step functions that do not run in CAS

Are you a statistical programmer whose company has adopted SAS Viya? If so, you probably know that the DATA step can run in parallel in SAS Cloud Analytic Services (CAS). As Sekosky (2017) says, "running in a single thread in SAS is different from running in many threads in CAS."

English

Blogs

Blogs

Programming Tips