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Programming Tips

Strengthen your programming skills with tips and techniques from the experts

Analytics | Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Robert AllisonJune 15, 2017 0

Map: Median age by country

If countries have a similar median age, does that mean they are also similar in other ways? My best guess at an answer is - probably. Perhaps if we plot the data on a map, we'll be able to see the answer more clearly. I first started thinking about this

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Government | Health Care

Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Robert AllisonJune 14, 2017 0

Bilingual job opportunities in the U.S.

When I was in college, I lived in the Alexander dorm, where each room had an American student and an International student. I learned a lot about the rest of the world, and I also heard a lot of different languages being spoken. I'm really impressed when I hear people

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Communications | Education | Government | Travel

Analytics | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinJune 14, 2017 0

Two ways to compute maximum likelihood estimates in SAS

In a previous article, I showed two ways to define a log-likelihood function in SAS. This article shows two ways to compute maximum likelihood estimates (MLEs) in SAS: the nonlinear optimization subroutines in SAS/IML and the NLMIXED procedure in SAS/STAT. To illustrate these methods, I will use the same data

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Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Warren F. KuhfeldJune 12, 2017 0

Customizing the Kaplan-Meier Plot

Customizing the Kaplan-Meier plot in assorted ways is so popular that we devote an entire chapter to it in the SAS/STAT documentation.

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Analytics | Programming Tips

Log-likelihood function for the binomial distribution

Rick WicklinJune 12, 2017 0

Two simple ways to construct a log-likelihood function in SAS

Maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) is a powerful statistical technique that uses optimization techniques to fit parametric models. The technique finds the parameters that are "most likely" to have produced the observed data. SAS provides many tools for nonlinear optimization, so often the hardest part of maximum likelihood is writing down

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Data Visualization | Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Robert AllisonJune 9, 2017 0

Star Trek (the original series) - the infographic!

If you were a fan of the original Star Trek television series, you probably remember lots of little details about the show. And you might even feel sorry for the people who don't get the clever references you make to things from the show. If you're that person, then you'll

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Sports & Entertainment

Programming Tips

Rick WicklinJune 7, 2017 0

The IFN function versus the IF-THEN/ELSE statement in SAS

I have previously discussed how to define functions that safely evaluate their arguments and return a missing value if the argument is not in the domain of the function. The canonical example is the LOG function, which is defined only for positive arguments. For example, to evaluate the LOG function

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Leonid BatkhanJune 6, 2017 0

Combine and conquer with SAS

The ancient political maxim “divide and conquer” (Lat. “dīvide et īmpera”) has been used for millennia in politics, sociology, and psychology, mainly to manipulate people. In the last two centuries, however, this principle has also been adopted by computer science. It is widely used in computer programming, primarily in computer

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Data Visualization | Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Robert AllisonJune 6, 2017 0

Graphing Ironman race data

This past weekend, I was a volunteer helping with an Ironman 70.3 race. I was really impressed & inspired by the athletes ... I was also excited about the quantity and variety of data generated by this type of race (compared to a regular marathon). And as a 'graph guy' I

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Sports & Entertainment

Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Ron CodyJune 6, 2017 0

Using regular expressions to verify the pattern of character data

Wait! Don't close this window. I understand that regular expressions can be very complicated (yes, there are many books on the subject), but some basic expressions to test patterns such as zip codes or telephone numbers are not that difficult. In addition, you can sometimes use Google to search for

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Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Bobbie WagonerJune 5, 2017 0

The new Data Pane in SAS Visual Analytics - It's painless!

Refining your data for effective reports is even easier in the 8.1 release of SAS Visual Analytics. In this blog post, I’ll take a look at the data pane, how it displays data from your active data source, and a few tasks that you might want to perform, such as

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Data Visualization | Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Robert AllisonJune 5, 2017 0

A medical dashboard for the Star Trek fans

As a kid who grew up in the 60s & 70s, I was a big fan of the original Star Trek TV series. And in the years since, I have seen lots of the Star Trek “technology” become a reality: cellphones, portable tablet computers, talking computers (Alexa/Siri), etc. But I

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Health Care | Life Sciences

Programming Tips

Rick WicklinJune 5, 2017 0

Runs in coin tosses; patterns in random seating

If you toss a coin 28 times, you would not be surprised to see three heads in a row, such as ...THHHTH.... But what about eight heads in a row? Would a sequence such as THHHHHHHHTH... be a rare event? This question popped into my head last weekend as I

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Analytics | Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Robert AllisonJune 2, 2017 0

How to 'stack the deck' for a better graph!

To stack the deck means to cheat or to fix something so a desired outcome is achieved. This term originated in card games, but can also be applied to other things. And here, I apply it (both metaphorically and literally) to creating a better graph! I recently saw the following

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Government | Manufacturing

Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Warren F. KuhfeldJune 1, 2017 0

Multipage Adverse Event Reports Using PROC SGPLOT

Did you know that you can make a graph extend across multiple pages? Making a multipage graph poses no problem for ODS Graphics---you simply use a BY variable to create page breaks. Most of the work involves deciding where to break pages and properly labeling continuations.

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Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Teri PatsilarasJune 1, 2017 0

Cascading Prompts as Report and Page Prompts in SAS Visual Analytics

There are several exciting new features available in SAS Visual Analytics 8.1 that I know will excite you; this blog will show you how you can now configure cascading prompts for the Report Prompt and Page Prompt areas! Prior to SAS Visual Analytics 8.1 there was a way to use parameters to configure cascading prompts for

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

How to generate random numbers in SAS

Rick WicklinJune 1, 2017 0

How to choose a seed for generating random numbers in SAS

Last week I was asked a simple question: "How do I choose a seed for the random number functions in SAS?" The answer might surprise you: use any seed you like. Each seed of a well-designed random number generator is likely to give rise to a stream of random numbers,

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Programming Tips

Warren F. KuhfeldMay 30, 2017 0

The BEST D formats that you have ever seen!

The Dw.p format displays numeric values, in a field w positions wide, possibly with a great range of values, lining up decimals for values of similar magnitude. The BESTDw.pformat combines the BESTw. format for integers and the Dw.p format for nonintegers. Specifying BESTDw.p (where p = w - 1) is better than specifying BESTw. for columns, since decimals do not shift when the last digit is 0.

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Programming Tips | SAS Administrators

Chris Hemedinger

Chris HemedingerMay 30, 2017 0

Create and run SAS code in SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office

When SAS Add-In for Microsoft Office was first created over a decade ago, SAS programmers were told to check their skills at the door. This new product was for non-programmers only. SAS programmers were invited to contribute to the experience by packaging their code in SAS stored processes, which end

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Programming Tips

Rick WicklinMay 30, 2017 0

On the SMOOTHCONNECT option in the SERIES statement

By default, when you use the SERIES statement in PROC SGPLOT to create a line plot, the observations are connected (in order) by straight line segments. However, SAS 9.4m1 introduced the SMOOTHCONNECT option which, as the name implies, uses a smooth curve to connect the observations. In Sanjay Matange's blog,

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Data Visualization | Programming Tips

Warren F. KuhfeldMay 29, 2017 0

Advanced ODS Graphics: GTL Expressions

When the data object that underlies a graph is not quite in the form that you want, you might be able to use GTL expressions to produce precisely the graph that you want.

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Ron CodyMay 26, 2017 0

Standardizing phone numbers using SAS

How many times have you entered a phone number on a web page, only to be told that you did not type it the "correct" form? I find that annoying. Don't you? In my latest book, Cody's Data Cleaning Techniques, 3rd edition, I show how to convert a phone number

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Charu ShankarMay 25, 2017 0

Take that SAS option

Elizabeth is courageous. Scoliosis since birth, corrective spinal surgery replaced her spine with steel, tripping on stairs permanently broke her right ankle. Then she decided to come take yoga with me. To help ease back pain & reduce hip stress, I offered options like bent legs not cross. In class

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Programming Tips

Jody CarltonMay 19, 2017 0

Demystifying and resolving common transcoding problems

Technical Support regularly receives incoming calls from customers who have encountered the following transcoding warning: WARNING: Some character data was lost during transcoding in the data set xxx.xxx. Either the data contains characters that are not representable in the new encoding or truncation occurred during transcoding People are not always

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Michael A. RaithelMay 15, 2017 0

The Little SAS Program’s Big Night Out

The little SAS program’s official name was Extract_Transform_Load_ 0314.sas. But, that name was much too formal, way too long, and did not roll off of the tongue very easily at all. So, everybody simply called her: ETL Pi. ETL Pi was conceived in a 2-hour project strategy meeting in conference

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinMay 15, 2017 0

INTCK and INTNX: Two essential functions for computing intervals between dates in SAS

Last week I showed a timeline of living US presidents. The number of living presidents is constant during the time interval between inaugurations and deaths of presidents. The data was taken from a Wikipedia table (shown below) that shows the number of years and days between events. This article shows

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Data Visualization | Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Robert AllisonMay 12, 2017 0

Map of idioms, from around the world

An idiom is a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words. For example, "don't cry over spilled milk," or "the cat is out of the bag." Idioms are fun to use, and fun to hear - don't you agree? And

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Education | Travel

Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinMay 10, 2017 0

Simulate lognormal data in SAS

A SAS customer asked how to simulate data from a three-parameter lognormal distribution as specified in the PROC UNIVARIATE documentation. In particular, he wanted to incorporate a threshold parameter into the simulation. Simulating lognormal data is easy if you remember an important fact: if X is lognormally distributed, then Y=log(X)

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Data Visualization | Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Robert AllisonMay 9, 2017 0

How to add rivers and lakes to your SAS maps

Water is in the news more & more lately - people seem to either have too much, or too little, at any given time. Therefore being able to plot rivers and lakes on a map could be a very useful skill to add to your graphical bag of tricks. A few

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Programming Tips

Rick WicklinMay 8, 2017 0

Timeline of living US presidents

Quick! What is the next term in the numerical sequence 1, 2, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 4, 3, 4, ...? If you said '3', then you must be an American history expert, because that sequence represents the number of living US presidents beginning with Washington's inauguration on 30APR1789 and

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