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Programming Tips

Strengthen your programming skills with tips and techniques from the experts

Analytics | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinFebruary 13, 2023 0

Estimate the pth root of a Markov transition matrix

You can use a Markov transition matrix to model the transition of an entity between a set of discrete states. A transition matrix is also called a stochastic matrix. A previous article describes how to use transition matrices for stochastic modeling. You can estimate a Markov transition matrix by using

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Data Visualization | Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinFebruary 8, 2023 0

A random walk inside a heart

SAS programmers love to make special graphs for Valentine's Day. In fact, there is a long history of heart-shaped graphs and love-inspired programs written in SAS! Last year, I added to the collection by showing how a ball bounces on a heart-shaped billiards table. This year, I create a similar

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Programming Tips | SAS Administrators

Joe FurbeeFebruary 7, 2023 0

Authentication to SAS Viya: a couple of approaches

In my blog series regarding SAS REST APIs (you can read all of my posts on this topic here) I outlined how to integrate SAS analytical capabilities into applications. I detailed how to construct REST calls, build body parameters and interpret the responses. I've not yet covered authentication for the

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Analytics | Programming Tips

Peter Styliadis

Peter StyliadisFebruary 7, 2023 0

Getting started with Python integration to SAS® Viya® - Part 13 - Loading a Client-Side CSV File into CAS

Welcome to the continuation of my series Getting Started with Python Integration to SAS Viya. In previous posts, I discussed how to connect to the CAS server, how to execute CAS actions, and how your data is organized on the CAS server. In this post I'll discuss loading client-side CSV files into

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinFebruary 6, 2023 0

How to use Git to share SAS programs

This article is about how to use Git to share SAS programs, specifically how to share libraries of SAS IML functions. Some IML programmers might remember an earlier way to share libraries of functions: SAS/IML released "packages" in SAS 9.4m3 (2015), which enable you to create, document, share, and use

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Data Visualization | Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinFebruary 1, 2023 0

Colorblind-safe palettes in SAS

SAS supports the ColorBrewer system of color palettes from the ColorBrewer website (Brewer and Harrower, 2002). The ColorBrewer color ramps are available in SAS by using the PALETTE function in SAS IML software. The PALETTE function supports all ColorBrewer palettes, but some palettes are not interpretable by people with color

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Data Visualization | Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinJanuary 30, 2023 0

Tips for making colorblind-safe statistical graphs

Did you know that about 8% of the world's men are colorblind? (More correctly, 8% of men are "color vision deficient," since they see colors, but not all colors.) Because of the "birthday paradox," in a room that contains eight men, the probability is 50% that at least one is

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinJanuary 25, 2023 0

Write to the log from SAS IML programs

I previously discussed how to use the PUTLOG statement to write a message from the DATA step to the log in SAS. The PUTLOG statement is commonly used to write notes, warnings, and errors to the log. This article shows how to use the PRINTTOLOG subroutine in SAS IML software

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinJanuary 23, 2023 0

Use the PUTLOG statement to write errors, warning, and notes to the SAS log

Many experienced SAS programmers use the PUT statement to write messages to the log from a DATA step. But did you know that SAS supports the PUTLOG function, which is another way to write a message to the log? I use the PUTLOG statement in the DATA step for the

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Analytics | Programming Tips

Peter Styliadis

Peter StyliadisJanuary 17, 2023 0

Getting started with Python integration to SAS® Viya® - Part 12 - Count of Unique Values

Welcome to the continuation of my series Getting Started with Python Integration to SAS Viya. In previous posts, I discussed how to connect to the CAS server, working with CAS actions and CASResults objects, and how to summarize columns. Now it's time to focus on how to get the count of unique values

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Analytics | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinJanuary 16, 2023 0

Simulate data from a logistic regression model: How the intercept parameter affects the probability of the event

This article shows that you can use the intercept parameter to control the probability of the event in a simulation study that involves a binary logistic regression model. For simplicity, I will simulate data from a logistic regression model that involves only one explanatory variable, but the main idea applies

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Programming Tips | SAS Administrators

Leonid BatkhanJanuary 11, 2023 0

Automatic cloning of SAS metadata user groups and roles

SAS expert Leonid Batkhan demonstrates how to automatically replicate/clone metadata users’ groups and roles from one user to another.

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Analytics | Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinJanuary 11, 2023 0

12 blog posts from 2022 that deserve a second look

In a previous article, I presented some of the most popular blog posts from 2022. In general, popular articles deal with elementary topics that have broad appeal. However, I also write articles about advanced topics. The following articles didn't make the Top 10 list, but they deserve a second look.

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Programming Tips

Typewriter keys

Ron CodyJanuary 10, 2023 0

Understanding the _TYPE_ variable in output data sets

When you use PROC MEANS or PROC SUMMARY to create a summary data set and include a CLASS statement, SAS includes two variables, _FREQ_ and _TYPE_, in the output data set. This blog shows you two ways to interpret and use _TYPE_ using the data set Shoes in the SASHELP

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Analytics | Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinJanuary 4, 2023 0

Top 10 posts from The DO Loop in 2022

Last year, I wrote almost 90 articles for The DO Loop blog. My most popular articles were about SAS programming, data visualization, statistics and data analysis, and matrix computations. If you missed these articles when I published them—or if you want to read them again!— here is the "Reader's Choice

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Programming Tips

Peter Styliadis

Peter StyliadisDecember 22, 2022 0

Creating a Microsoft Excel report using SAS, Python and SQL!

The addition of the PYTHON procedure and Python editor in SAS Viya enables users to execute Python code in SAS Studio. This new capability in SAS Viya adds another tool to SAS's existing collection. With this addition I thought, how can I utilize this new found power? In this example,

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Programming Tips

Bari LawhornDecember 21, 2022 0

Decode your SAS® macro code with the MFILE and MPRINT options

SAS' Bari Lawhorn introduces you to the MFILE option as a way to home in on errors and warnings in your macros.

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Programming Tips | SAS Administrators

Ursula PoloDecember 20, 2022 0

ESM and S9CA: Useful Tools for Migration from SAS 9 to SAS Viya

Change is hard and can be a bit scary. We tend to resist change as we get comfortable with our routines and how things work. However, many times we fail to see the benefits of that something new. Imagine if we didn't move from MS DOS to Windows? If we'd

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Programming Tips

Peter Styliadis

Peter StyliadisDecember 19, 2022 0

CAS-Action! Advanced Frequency Tables - Part 4

Welcome back to my SAS Users blog series CAS Action! - a series on fundamentals. The previous posts show how to use the simple.freq CAS action to generate, save and group simple frequency tables. In this post I will show you how to use the freqTab.freqTab CAS action to generate more advanced

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinDecember 19, 2022 0

Working with combinations in SAS

A colleague posted a Christmas-themed code snippet that shows how to use the DATA step in SAS to output all the possible ways that Santa can hitch up a team of reindeer to pull his sled. The assumption is that Rudolph must lead the team, and the remaining reindeer are

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Programming Tips

Peter Styliadis

Peter StyliadisDecember 16, 2022 0

CAS-Action! Grouping Frequency Tables - Part 3

Welcome back to my SAS Users blog series CAS Action! - a series on fundamentals. In my previous part 1 and part 2 posts I reviewed how to use the simple.freq CAS action to generate frequency distributions for one or more columns and how to save the results. In this post I

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Programming Tips

Ron CodyDecember 14, 2022 0

Using SAS to score a test

If you have ever needed to score a multiple-choice test, this blog is for you. Even if you are not planning to score a test, the techniques used in this example are useful for many other programming tasks. The example I am going to present assumes the answer key and

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Analytics | Learn SAS | Programming Tips

ARH(1) covariance structure

Rick WicklinDecember 14, 2022 0

Construct heterogeneous structured covariance matrices in SAS

A previous article describes how to use SAS IML software to construct common covariance structures that are encountered in mixed models. Each covariance matrix has several parameters, and you want to construct a matrix for any choice of the parameters. After you have constructed the covariance matrix, you can use

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Programming Tips

Peter Styliadis

Peter StyliadisDecember 12, 2022 0

CAS-Action! Saving Frequency Tables - Part 2

Welcome back to my SAS Users blog series CAS Action! - a series on fundamentals. In my previous post CAS-Action! Simple Frequency Tables - Part 1, I reviewed how to use the simple.freq CAS action to generate frequency distributions for one or more columns using the distributed CAS server. In this post

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinDecember 12, 2022 0

Properties of the Hadamard product

I always emphasize efficiency in statistical programming. I have previously written about why you should never multiply with a large diagonal matrix in the SAS IML language. The reason is that it is more efficient to use elementwise multiplication than matrix multiplication. Specifically, if d is a column vector, then

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Analytics | Programming Tips

Peter Styliadis

Peter StyliadisDecember 7, 2022 0

CAS-Action! Simple Frequency Tables - Part 1

Welcome back to my SAS Users blog series CAS Action! - a series on fundamentals. If you'd like to start by learning more about the distributed CAS server and CAS actions, please see CAS Actions and Action Sets - a brief intro. Otherwise, let's learn how to generate frequency distributions for one

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Data Visualization | Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinDecember 7, 2022 0

Art in SAS: Christmas wrapping paper

For Christmas 2021, I wrote an article about palettes of Christmas colors, chiefly shades of red, green, silver, and gold. One of my readers joked that she would like to use my custom palette to design her own Christmas wrapping paper! I remembered her jest when I saw some artwork

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Analytics | Programming Tips

Peter Styliadis

Peter StyliadisDecember 1, 2022 0

CAS-Action! Rename Columns in a CAS Table

Welcome back to my SAS Users blog series CAS Action! - a series on fundamentals. If you'd like to start by learning more about the distributed CAS server and CAS actions, please see CAS Actions and Action Sets - a brief intro. Otherwise, let's learn how to rename columns in CAS tables.

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinNovember 30, 2022 0

Ladders: A probabilistic card trick

A probabilistic card trick is a trick that succeeds with high probability and does not require any skill from the person performing the trick. I have seen a certain trick mentioned several times on social media. I call it "ladders" or the "ladders game" because it reminds me of the

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinNovember 28, 2022 0

Simulate poker hands in SAS

A SAS programmer was trying to simulate poker hands. He was having difficulty because the sampling scheme for simulating card games requires that you sample without replacement for each hand. In statistics, this is called "simple random sampling." If done properly, it is straightforward to simulate poker hands in SAS.

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