In the past, the COMPRESS function was useful. Since SAS version 9, it has become a blockbuster, and you might not have noticed. The major change was the addition of a new optional parameter called MODIFIERS. The traditional use of the COMPRESS function was to remove blanks or a list
SAS' Leonid Batkhan explains the data cleansing task of removing unwanted repeated characters in SAS character variables.
SAS' Leonid Batkhan summarizes a lesser known but useful feature in SAS that allows you to bring Microsoft Excel functions into your SAS programs.
The %SYSFUNC macro function allows you to access most SAS® functions. In this blog post, I demonstrate how %SYSFUNC can help in your programming needs when a macro function might not exist. I'll also share the formatting feature that is built in to %SYSFUNC and introduce the %QSYSFUNC that masks the returned value.
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
The purpose of this blog post is to demonstrate a SAS coding technique that allows for calculations with multiple variables and multiple observations across a SAS dataset. This technique can be useful for working with time series, clinical trials, - in any data step calculations involving values from different observations.
In his recent article Perceptions of probability, Rick Wicklin explores how vague statements about "likeliness" translate into probabilities that we can express numerically. It's a fun, informative post -- I recommend it! You'll "Almost Certainly" enjoy it. To prepare the article, Rick first had to download the source data from
“Here’s Johnny!!!” and well sometimes John and sometimes Jonathan and sometimes Jon. In the real world, you sometimes need to make matching character strings more flexible. This is especially common when merging data sets. Variables, especially names, are not always exactly the same in all sources of your data. When
SAS programming is taught in schools all over the world, including in high schools. Occasionally, I receive questions via my blog such as this one: Can somebody help me on this? Write a short DATA _NULL_ step to determine the largest integer you can store on your computer in 3,
