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Programming Tips

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Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerAugust 28, 2018 11

Manage the current directory within your SAS program

Using relative file paths in your SAS programs? Use the new DLGCDIR function to manage your SAS working directory -- even in SAS Enterprise Guide or SAS Studio -- to ensure your programs are working the way they ought to.

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerJuly 20, 2018 5

SAS code golf: find the max digit in a string of digits

"Code golf" is a fun programming pastime that challenges you to solve a problem with the least amount of code possible. Like regular golf, the goal is to use fewest code "strokes" to hit the mark. Here's a recent challenge that was posted to me via Twitter. @cjdinger @SASJedi got

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Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerJuly 5, 2018 32

Using %IF-%THEN-%ELSE in SAS programs

SAS programmers have long wanted the ability to control the flow of their SAS programs without having to resort to complex SAS macro programming. With SAS 9.4 Maintenance 5, it's now supported! You can now use %IF-%THEN-%ELSE constructs in open code. This is big news -- even if it only

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Data Visualization | Internet of Things | Programming Tips | Work & Life at SAS

Chris HemedingerJuly 2, 2018 8

The Internet of Snacks: SnackBot data and what it reveals about SAS life

At SAS, we love data. Data is central to our corporate vision: to transform a world of data into a world of intelligence. We're also famous for enjoying M&Ms, but to us they are more than a sweet snack. They're also another source of data. My colleague Pete Privitera, with

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerJune 21, 2018 9

How to use SAS to read a range of cells from Excel

I've said it before: spreadsheets are not databases. However, many of us use spreadsheets as if they were databases, and then we struggle when the spreadsheet layout does not support database-style rigor of predictable rows, columns, and variable types -- the basic elements we need for analytics and reporting. If

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Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerMay 7, 2018 8

Which random number generator did Thanos use?

WARNING: This blog post references Avengers: Infinity War and contains story spoilers. But it also contains useful information about random number generators (RNGs) -- tempting! If you haven't yet seen the movie, you should make peace with this inner conflict before reading on. Throughout the movie, Thanos makes it clear

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerApril 30, 2018 16

A productive future for SAS Enterprise Guide

The title of this blog says what you really need to know: SAS Enterprise Guide does have a future, and it's a bright one. Ever since SAS Studio debuted in 2014, onlookers have speculated about its impact on the development of SAS Enterprise Guide. I think that we have been

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Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerApril 4, 2018 0

SAS functions to encode and decode data for the Web

Sir Tim Berners-Lee is famous for inventing the World Wide Web and for the construction of URLs -- a piece of syntax that every 8-year-old is now familiar with. According to the lore, when Sir Tim invented URLs he did not imagine that Internet surfers of all ages and backgrounds

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Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerJanuary 23, 2018 20

How to test PROC HTTP and the JSON library engine

Using SAS with REST APIs is fun and rewarding, but it's also complicated. When you're dealing with web services, credentials, data parsing and security, there are a lot of things that can go wrong. It's useful to have a simple program that verifies that the "basic plumbing" is working before

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Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerJanuary 16, 2018 8

How to secure your REST API credentials in SAS programs

I've used SAS with a bunch of different REST APIs: GitHub, Brightcove, Google Analytics, Lithium, LinkedIn, and more. For most of these I have to send user/password or "secret" application tokens to the web service so that it knows who I am and what data I can retrieve. I do

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