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Programming Tips

Strengthen your programming skills with tips and techniques from the experts

Data Visualization | Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Sanjay MatangeNovember 10, 2017 0

Spark grid

The 25th annual SESUG conference was held at in the SAS campus this week. I had the opportunity to meet and chat with many users and attend many excellent presentations. I will write about those that stood out (graphically) in my view. One excellent presentation was on "Methods for creating

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Analytics | Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Robert AllisonNovember 10, 2017 0

When are the fall leaves at their peak?

One of the great things about living in an area that has seasons is you get to see the leaves change colors in the fall. If you're a big fan of seeing the leaves at their peak, you could actually travel around the country and see the leaves at their

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Data for Good | Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Robert AllisonNovember 9, 2017 0

Graphing mistakes to avoid ... like the plague!

I recently saw an alarming article on social media about an outbreak of airborne plague spreading from Madagascar to Africa (and potentially to the rest of the world). The plague?!? - I thought that only happened hundreds of years ago?!? I don't really trust news on Facebook, so I went

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Data Visualization | Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Sanjay MatangeNovember 8, 2017 0

Long category values

The South East SAS Users Group meeting wound up yesterday. The 25th anniversary conference was held on SAS Campus and it provided a great opportunity to meet with many enthusiastic SAS users and attend many informative presentations. More on this in a follow-up article. During one of these presentations, Mary

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinNovember 8, 2017 0

How to format rows of a table in SAS

A SAS programmer wanted to display a table in which the rows have different formats. An example is shown below. The programmer wanted columns that represent statistics and rows that represent variables. She wanted to display formats (such as DOLLAR) for some variables—but only for certain statistics. For example, the

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Natasha Ulanowski

Natasha UlanowskiNovember 6, 2017 0

SAS tips and tricks: Users-tell-all edition

There is certainly no shortage of terrific tips and tricks in various SAS blogs from some of our most distinguished SAS in-house experts. But, there's another group of equally qualified experts who don't often get to share their expertise on this channel: our customers. So, I went on a quest to get

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Programming Tips

Rick WicklinNovember 6, 2017 0

What is a factoid in SAS?

Have you ever seen the "Fit Summary" table from PROC LOESS, as shown to the right? Or maybe you've seen the "Model Information" table that is displayed by some SAS analytical procedures? These tables provide brief interesting facts about a statistical procedure, hence they are called factoids. In SAS, a

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Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Warren F. KuhfeldNovember 2, 2017 0

Advanced ODS Graphics: A deeper dive into documents, dynamics, and data objects

You can modify all of the components of the graphs that analytical procedures produce: the data object, graph template, and the dynamic variables. This post takes a closer look at dynamic variables (which you can see by using PROC DOCUMENT) and data objects and explores graphs that are constructed from more than one data object.

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Leonid BatkhanNovember 1, 2017 0

Hopping for the best - calculations across SAS dataset observations

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.

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Data Visualization | Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Sanjay MatangeNovember 1, 2017 0

Legend order redux

Once in a while you run into a pesky situation that is hard to overcome without resorting to major surgery. Such a situation occurs when you have a stacked bar chart with a discrete legend positioned vertically on the side of the graph. A simple example is shown below. title

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Programming Tips

Rick WicklinNovember 1, 2017 0

Evaluate a function by using the function name in SAS/IML

A SAS/IML programmer asked whether you can pass the name of a function as an argument to a SAS/IML module and have the module call the function that is passed in. The answer is "yes." The basic idea is to create a string that represents the function call and then

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Charu ShankarOctober 31, 2017 0

3 freaky ways PROC FREQ can work in your favor

A ghoulish Halloween Boo to all my readers! Hope my costume freaks you out, but even if it doesn't, I’m positive PROC FREQ will in a few amazing ways! Today’s Programming 2: Data Manipulation Techniques class asked about the power of PROC FREQ. Since I stopped to explain some of it's benefits to

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Data Visualization | Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Sanjay MatangeOctober 30, 2017 0

Fill patterns

When a plot is classified by one or more variables, the different classes values are displayed in the graph either by position or by using different plot attributes such as color, marker shape or line pattern. For plots that display the visual by a filled area (bar, bin, band, bubble,

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Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinOctober 30, 2017 0

A SAS programming technique to modify ODS templates

This article demonstrates a SAS programming technique that I call Kuhfeld's template modification technique. The technique enables you to dynamically modify an ODS template and immediately call the modified template to produce a new graph or table. By following the five steps in this article, you can implement the technique

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Data Visualization | Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Sanjay MatangeOctober 27, 2017 0

Legend items

Plot statements included in the graph definition can contribute to the legend(s). This can happen automatically, or can be customized using the KEYLEGEND statement. For plot statements that are classified by a group variable, all of the unique group values are displayed in the legend, along with their graphical representation

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Advanced Analytics | Programming Tips

Ryan LolliOctober 26, 2017 0

Tip and tricks to promote CAS tables from session-scope to global-scope

When loading data into CAS using PROC CASUTIL, you have two choices on how the table can be loaded: session-scope or global-scope. This is controlled by the PROMOTE option in the PROC CASUTIL statement. Session-scope loaded proc casutil; load casdata="model_table.sas7bdat" incaslib="ryloll" outcaslib="otcaslib" casout="model_table”; run; Global-scope loaded proc casutil; load casdata="model_table.sas7bdat"

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Analytics | Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Robert AllisonOctober 26, 2017 0

Which country has the most powerful passport?

If you plan to travel abroad and see the world, you'll need a passport. And, depending on several factors, you might also need travel visas. Which passports allow you to travel with the least amount of hassle (and the least amounts of visas)? Let's create a map to help you

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Government | Travel

Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Jim SimonOctober 25, 2017 0

Finding your Dream Car with a little macro magic

Suppose you want a list of car manufacturers from the CARS dataset. Easy! Call the %CHARLIST macro from a %PUT statement, like this: The CHARLIST macro generates a list of unique values of a selected variable from a selected dataset. So does PROC FREQ. But, if you don't need statistics, the CHARLIST

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Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Warren F. KuhfeldOctober 25, 2017 0

Advanced ODS Graphics: Curve labels and date axes

Curve labels in series plots can be positioned inside or outside the graph. Date variables can be specified as TYPE=LINEAR with a date format or more commonly as TYPE=DATE. Sometimes external curve labels might appear below or above the graph, particularly with TYPE=DATE axes. This post shows you ways to move them to the right of the graph.

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Analytics | Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Robert AllisonOctober 24, 2017 0

Do you say coke, pop, or soda?

Quick Quiz! Where might you hear the following conversation? ... Waitress: "What would you like to drink, honey?" Customer: "I'll have a coke." Waitress: "What kind?" Customer: "Diet Pepsi." If you answered somewhere between Texas and Georgia, you would be correct! To those of us not from that area, it

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Data Visualization | Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Sanjay MatangeOctober 23, 2017 0

Turnip plot redux

Last year, a user asked about creating a "Turnip Plot" as used in this study of Caesarian Section Rates. Primarily, this is similar to a histogram on the y-axis for each unique value on the y-axis. A marker is drawn for each occurrence, starting from the center. Back then, I

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Data Visualization | Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Sanjay MatangeOctober 22, 2017 0

Tips and tricks: Segmented discrete axis

The previous post on Multiple Blank Categories showed how to include multiple blank categories on the axis. But, given the purpose for this was to separate different segments in the data, I also included ideas on how to segmented a discrete axis using reference lines or Block Plot. A similar idea

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Advanced Analytics | Programming Tips | SAS Administrators

Phil WeissOctober 20, 2017 0

Top 12 Advantages of SAS Viya

There are many compelling reasons existing SAS users might want to start integrating SAS Viya into their SAS9 programs and applications. For me, it comes down to ease-of-use, speed, and faster time-to-value. With the ability to traverse the (necessarily iterative) analytics lifecycle faster than before, we are now able to generate

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Programming Tips

Amber ElamOctober 20, 2017 0

Tips for using the IMPORT procedure to read files that contain delimiters

Reading an external file that contains delimiters (commas, tabs, or other characters such as a pipe character or an exclamation point) is easy when you use the IMPORT procedure. It's easy in that variable names are on row 1, the data starts on row 2, and the first 20 rows

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips | SAS Administrators

Leonid BatkhanOctober 20, 2017 0

Creating reports in style with SAS Enterprise Guide

“The difference between style and fashion is quality.” -Giorgio Armani With an out-of-the-box SAS Enterprise Guide (EG) installation, when you build a report in SAS EG it is displayed in a nice-looking default style. If you like it, you can keep it, and continue reading. If you don’t quite

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Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Warren F. KuhfeldOctober 19, 2017 0

Fun with ODS Graphics: Drawing and rotating an impossible triangle

I hope everyone has noticed some new shortcuts in Graphically Speaking. As you scroll down and look to the right, there are shortcuts for Sanjay's getting started and clinical graphs posts and one for my advanced blogs. When Sanjay asked me to make an icon for my advanced blogs, at

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Analytics | Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Robert AllisonOctober 17, 2017 0

RDU airport -vs- surrounding parks and nature

In growing areas such as the Research Triangle Park, there is always the tough decision between developing land for business, or keeping it natural for parks and recreation. SAS is fortunate to have the great hiking trails at Umstead Park just across the road to the north - it's the

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Sports & Entertainment | Travel

Data Visualization | Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Sanjay MatangeOctober 16, 2017 0

Tips and tricks - Multiple blank categories on axis

Off and on, users have expressed the need to include multiple blank categories on a discrete axis. Often, this is desirable to separate groups of bars (or categories) in a graph due to some difference their definition. Such a case was discussed in this blog article on using non breaking

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Jim SimonOctober 16, 2017 0

How to format a macro variable

Would you like to format your macro variables? Easy! Just use the %FORMAT function, like this: What?! You never heard of the %FORMAT function? Of course not, cuz it doesn't exist! No problem. Just create it, like this: %macro format(value,format); %if %datatyp(&value)=CHAR %then %sysfunc(putc(&value,&format)); %else %left(%qsysfunc(putn(&value,&format))); %mend format; The %FORMAT

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Data Visualization | Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Sanjay MatangeOctober 14, 2017 0

New Features in SAS 9.40M5 - Gradient fills

ODS Graphics procedures primarily strive towards the following goal: "Make simple graphs easy and complex graphs possible". SGPLOT procedure allows you create simple graphs with a single plot statement, and create complex graphs by layering together or combining multiple plot statements. Generally, the appearance follows the guidelines set by industry

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