Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Charu ShankarFebruary 4, 2013 0

A database professional’s best friend

To optimize a Structured Query Language (SQL), the database professional must befriend this order and perhaps even embrace it. Who is your best friend? I’m talking about the order in which SQL processes your statements. Simply put, in what order does SQL do your work? (From my previous post you

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Rick WicklinFebruary 4, 2013 0

Simulate discrete variables by using the "Table" distribution

I wanted to write a blog post about the "Table distribution" in SAS. The Table distribution, which is supported by the RAND and the RANDGEN function, enables you to specify the probability of selecting each of k items. Therefore you can use the Table distribution to sample, with replacement, from

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Shelly GoodinFebruary 1, 2013 0

SAS author's tip: Outlier detection with ARIMA(X) models

This week's tip is from Gerhard Svolba and his book Data Quality for Analytics Using SAS. Gerhard is a product manager and pre-sales consultant at SAS in Austria, where he specializes in analytics and customer intelligence. Visit his author page to learn more about him and his work. The following excerpt is

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Andy RavennaJanuary 30, 2013 0

An easy way to find variables in common to data sets

Over the holidays I was having a discussion with my cat, Ms. Trixie Lou. A question that often arises during the first programming class is the following: how do I find the variables that are in common to these two or three data sets? As it turns out, Ms. Trixie

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Rick WicklinJanuary 30, 2013 0

Oh, those pesky temporary variables!

The SAS/IML language secretly creates temporary variables. Most of the time programmers aren't even aware that the language does this. However, there is one situation where if you don't think carefully about temporary variables, your program will silently produce an error. And as every programmer knows, silent wrong numbers are

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Rick WicklinJanuary 23, 2013 0

Breaking bad programming habits. What's yours?

I like to be efficient in my SAS/IML programs, but sometimes I get into bad habits. Recently I realized that I was reshaping a bunch of SAS/IML row vectors because I wanted to write them to a SAS data set. This is completely unnecessary! The SAS/IML language will create a

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Rick WicklinJanuary 21, 2013 0

Reading big data in the SAS/IML language

A SAS/IML user on a discussion forum was trying to read data into a SAS/IML matrix, but the data was so large that it would not fit into memory. (Recall that SAS/IML matrices are kept in RAM.) After a few questions, it turned out that the user was trying to

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Rick WicklinJanuary 7, 2013 0

Getting started with the SAS/IML language: A free hands-on workshop

I am pleased to announce that this year at SAS Global Forum 2013 (San Francisco, April 27 to May 1, 2013) I am giving a free hands-on workshop (HOW) entitled "Getting Started with the SAS/IML Language." If you are not familiar with the very popular Hands-On Workshop series at SAS

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Advanced Analytics | Learn SAS

Rick WicklinJanuary 3, 2013 0

12 Tips for SAS Statistical Programmers

It's the start of a new year. Have you made a resolution to be a better data analyst? A better SAS statistical programmer? To learn more about multivariate statistics? What better way to start the New Year than to read (or re-read!) the top 12 articles for statistical programmers from

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Nele CogheDecember 19, 2012 0

Warming up for the International Year of Statistics with some “statistique à la française” on the Nobel Prize winners

Are you ready for the upcoming International Year of Statistics? I have prepared myself by doing a correspondence analysis. Excusez-moi? Correspondence analysis is a technique that has been very popular in France and is therefore sometimes referred to as French Statistics. Correspondence analysis is a technique for categorical data analysis.

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Shelly GoodinNovember 20, 2012 0

SAS author's tip: Combining tables using SAS Enterprise Guide

This week's SAS tip is from Susan Slaughter and Lora Delwiche's bestselling The Little SAS Book for Enterprise Guide 4.2. Susan and Lora are revered in the user community. And their work continues to help SAS users throughout the world. I hope you'll also find value in this week's excerpt. The following excerpt is from

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Data Visualization | Learn SAS

Robert AllisonNovember 19, 2012 0

Talking Turkey with SAS Graphs

Have you heard the expression "Talk Turkey"? Well then, what better (tongue-in-cheek) thing to do around the Thanksgiving holiday, than talk some turkey using SAS Graphs! ;) I don't usually decorate my graphs with images and pictures (they typically make the graph more difficult to read), but when it comes

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Rick WicklinNovember 19, 2012 0

Beware the naked LOC

The LOC function is one of the most important functions in the SAS/IML language. The LOC function finds elements of a vector or matrix that satisfy some condition. For example, if you are going to apply a logarithmic transform to data, you can use the LOC function to find all

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Kathy CouncilNovember 13, 2012 0

More eBooks for everyone

SAS Publishing has been offering eBooks through partners like Amazon, Apple, and Google, for a number of years. Our content is also available through subscription-based companies like Books 24x7, Safari, and EBSCO. We have learned that taking content developed for hardcopy and turning it into an ebook is not a

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Advanced Analytics | Learn SAS | Students & Educators

November 12, 2012 0

How to Hire a Chief Data Scientist

How do you hire a Chief Data Scientist? That's not a hypothetical question: I know of at least three companies that are actively looking for a "Chief Data Scientist" at the moment. Hiring the right person is harder than you'd think. Whether or not a Chief Data Scientist is a

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November 9, 2012 0

Early praise for PROC DOCUMENT by Example Using SAS

Hot off the press and debuting at NESUG is Michael Tuchman's new book, PROC DOCUMENT by Example Using SAS. Tuchman's book demonstrates the practical uses of the DOCUMENT procedure, a part of the Output Delivery System, in SAS 9.3. The DOCUMENT procedure allows general SAS users to store and manage

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Shelly GoodinOctober 26, 2012 0

SAS author's tip: The concept of a sampling distribution

This week's tip is from Professor Willbann D. Terpening and his book Statistical Analysis for Business Using JMP. If you're intrigued by the following excerpt, visit Terpening's author page for additional bonus book content. And take a look at his previously featured tip The Student t-distribution, on this blog: The following excerpt is from

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Shelly GoodinSeptember 14, 2012 0

SAS author's tip: Encoding of external files

Manfred Kiefer is a Globalization Specialist for SAS and the author of SAS Encoding: Understanding the Details. This week's tip is from his new book. In a review, Edwin Hart said "This book provides a very readable description of a topic that has long needed exposure: Why do my characters get

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Shelly GoodinAugust 31, 2012 0

SAS author's tip: Reading multiple observations per line of raw data

SAS users world-wide have turned to Susan Slaughter, Lora Delwiche, and The Little SAS Book  to learn SAS programming. This week's SAS tip is from their bestselling fourth edition of the book (the fifth edition is now available for preorder). Whichever version of The Little SAS Book you use, you'll benefit from the friendly

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Shelly GoodinAugust 24, 2012 0

SAS author's tip: Using PROC PRINT to list observations in a data set

This week's SAS tip is from A. John Bailer and his book Statistical Programming in SAS. A Fellow of the American Statistical Association, John has been using SAS for 30 years. He's also Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Statistics at Miami University. To read a free chapter and user reviews

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Shelly GoodinJuly 6, 2012 0

SAS author's tip: Using JMP to compare two variances

If you're using JMP, please read on. This week's tip is from Professor Robert Carver and his popular book Practical Data Analysis with JMP. To read a free chapter and reviews of the book, visit Robert's author page.  The following excerpt is from SAS Press author Robert Carver and his book "Practical Data Analysis with JMP" Copyright ©

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Shelly GoodinJune 7, 2012 0

SAS author's tip: %NLINMIX macro tips

This week's %NLINMIX macro tips come from the esteemed authors of SAS for Mixed Models, Second Edition. Ramon C. Littell, George A. Milliken, Walter W. Stroup, Russell D. Wolfinger, and Oliver Schabenberger combined their expertise to write this indispensable guide. This 800 page book has made a big impact in the user community

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Shelly GoodinMay 11, 2012 0

SAS author's tip: the Student t-distribution

Remarkably, this week's tip was initially inspired by the Guinness Brewery in Dublin, Ireland. In his new book Statistical Analysis for Business Using JMP, Professor Willbann Terpening provides lots of useful information - including the origin and usage of the Student t-distribution. If you'd like to get to know Willbann and

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Charu ShankarMay 10, 2012 0

#1 SAS programming tip for 2012

What tiny looking operator packs a mighty punch with large datasets?  Your queries are big. Your reports span multiple columns. To top it all you have to summarize data in multiple ways. Are you tempted to throw in the towel? Do you feel like saying a firm “Can’t be done”

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Charu ShankarApril 24, 2012 0

Go home on time with these 5 PROC SQL tips

How can you go home on time? Take a quick tour with these 5 tips that I was able to summarize for my students in the SAS SQL 1: Essentials class yesterday. Since they found it handy and asked if it could become a blog post, I thought I’d share

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Lisa FineApril 13, 2012 0

PROC REPORT formatting tips

I’m a SAS user in the Pharmaceutical industry. I switched to the Pharmaceutical industry (from Marketing Research) four years ago and had a lot to learn! I started my new endeavor by purchasing some excellent SAS books, joining my local SAS user group, attending conferences (Michigan SAS User Group, PharmaSUG,

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Charu ShankarMarch 23, 2012 0

What's in a name - SQL Join or SET?

Did that set off a trigger for you? It did for my SAS SQL 1: Essentials class, packed with SQL and SAS programmers alike.  To clarify matters I pulled up some examples to help get the differences quickly. Set operators and Joins are similar in that they both combine multiple

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Rick WicklinMarch 5, 2012 0

Functions to know: The MEAN, VAR, and STD functions

As a SAS developer, I am always looking ahead to the next release of SAS. However, many SAS customer sites migrate to new releases slowly and are just now adopting versions of SAS that were released in 2010 or 2011. Consequently, I want to write a few articles that discuss

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Shelly GoodinFebruary 27, 2012 0

SAS author's tip: Alternative ODS destinations

Neil Constable is a Principal Education Consultant at SAS in the United Kingdom, where he applies his extensive knowledge of Base SAS, SAS Enterprise Guide, and the SAS business intelligence tools. He's also the author of SAS Programming for Enterprise Guide Users, Second Edition--and this week's featured tip. You can get to know Neil

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Charu ShankarFebruary 27, 2012 0

Do I have to choose between Excel and SAS?

This question came up while helping my presales colleague with a client’s question: “Is Microsoft Excel in direct competition with SAS?” Not really. I like to think of SAS as partnering with Excel. Because of the following Excel benefits and its synergy with SAS. Excel has been around for years.

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