The SAS Dummy

Programming Tips

Strengthen your programming skills with tips and techniques from the experts

Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerOctober 8, 2013 21

Process Interruptus: a custom task to pause your process flow

Traditionally, SAS users like their processes to behave like Ron Popeil's famous rotisserie: they want to set it and forget it. That's the definition of a batch process. You work like heck to get it ready to run, then you push the button (or schedule it) and walk away. But

English

Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerOctober 1, 2013 11

Put them back the way you found them: restoring SAS titles

Has this ever happened to you? You have a SAS program with statements that you wrote, then you make use of a macro function or %include file supplied by a helpful colleague, and when your SAS code resumes, you find that all of your SAS titles have been changed out

English

Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerSeptember 17, 2013 22

Copy a file using a SAS program: another method

A couple of years ago I shared a method for copying any file within a SAS program. It was a simple approach, copying the file byte-by-byte from one fileref (SAS file reference) to another. My colleague Bruno Müller, a SAS trainer in Switzerland, has since provided a much more robust

English

Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerSeptember 5, 2013 1

New and improved: Importing SPSS data files in SAS Enterprise Guide

It's been almost 5 years since I posted one of the first custom tasks for SAS Enterprise Guide. It was a task that made it easier to convert SPSS data files into SAS data sets. Like many projects that begin as custom tasks, this one later became a feature in

English

Programming Tips | SAS Events

Chris HemedingerAugust 15, 2013 7

SAS Tech Talk: What's new in the SAS programming language?

In SAS 9.4, the SAS programming language continues add new features by the truckload. I've already discussed PROC DELETE (which is actually an old feature, but like an 80s hit song it's now back with a better version). In this SAS Tech Talk video from SAS Global Forum 2013, I

English

Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerAugust 7, 2013 3

I18N and L10N: Lazy terms for important work

If you're a software developer, you're probably already familiar with these terms: I18N and L10N. Internationalization (I + 18 letters + N = I18N) The discipline of preparing your software to run correctly in different languages with different culture settings. For example, the software must be able to accommodate multibyte

English

Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerAugust 2, 2013 11

SAS Enterprise Guide versions and SAS 9.4: what's supported

With the release of SAS 9.4 (which included SAS/STAT 12.3 and SAS Enterprise Guide 6.1), you might seriously consider hiring a Chief Versions Officer (CVO). Fortunately, most of the recent versions of SAS Enterprise Guide work with the different recent versions of SAS, so you have some flexibility as you

English

Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerJuly 31, 2013 33

How to use Gmail to send a message from a SAS program

Previously I've described how you can use SAS Enterprise Guide to send an e-mail message using Gmail as your e-mail provider. In the article, I mentioned that you can also write SAS programs that send e-mail messages, but at the time you could not reach Gmail using the FILENAME EMAIL

English

Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerJuly 8, 2013 15

PROC DELETE: it's not dead yet

The DELETE procedure is probably the most well-known and most-used SAS procedure that isn't actually documented or officially supported. That is, that was the case before the release of SAS 9.4, when PROC DELETE returns with more features than ever -- including a production-quality status. In his SAS Global Forum

English

Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerJuly 2, 2013 41

SAS trick: get the LIBNAME statement to create folders for you

When I work on SAS projects that create lots of files as results, it's often a requirement that those files be organized in a certain folder structure. The exact structure depends on the project, but here's an example: /results |__ html |__ images |__ xls |__ data Before you can

English

Blogs

Blogs

Programming Tips