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Programming Tips

Not much detail in this map of Australia

Chris Hemedinger

Chris HemedingerAugust 30, 2011 0

Using 3rd party shape files to build map charts in SAS

While talking to SAS users in Australia earlier this month, I often demonstrated the capabilities of the new Map Chart task in SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3. Creating map charts has never been easier: select your map data source, then select your response data source, and click Run. Voila! You've got

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Programming Tips

Rick WicklinAugust 29, 2011 0

How to clear the output window in SAS 9.3

One of the highly visible changes in SAS 9.3 is the fact that the old LISTING destination is no longer the default destination for ODS output. Instead, the HTML destination is the default. One positive consequence of this is that ODS graphics and tables are interlaced in the output. Another

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Programming Tips

Rick WicklinAugust 24, 2011 0

How to generate random numbers in SAS

You can generate a set of random numbers in SAS that are uniformly distributed by using the RAND function in the DATA step or by using the RANDGEN subroutine in SAS/IML software. (These same functions also generate random numbers from other common distributions such as binomial and normal.) The syntax

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Programming Tips

Example of HTMLBlue style from PROC REG

Chris Hemedinger

Chris HemedingerAugust 2, 2011 0

How to add HTMLBlue to your list of styles in SAS Enterprise Guide

One of the great innovations with SAS 9.3 is the focus on ODS statistical graphics. "Wait a minute," you're thinking, "weren't ODS graphics added in SAS 9.2?" Yes, that's true. But with SAS 9.3 there is even more capability: more analytical SAS procedures support the graphs, and there are more

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Programming Tips

Chris Hemedinger

Chris HemedingerJuly 12, 2011 0

Computing age in SAS 9.3

It seems like such a simple problem: how can you reliably compute the age of someone or something? Susan lamented the subtle issues using the YRDIF function exactly 1.0356164384 years ago. Sure, you could write your own function for calculating such things, as I suggested 0.1753424658 years ago. Or you

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Programming Tips

Chris Hemedinger

Chris HemedingerJuly 11, 2011 0

How to assign a library to the same path as your SAS Enterprise Guide project

SAS Enterprise Guide sets values for several useful SAS macro variables when it connects to a SAS session, including one macro variable, &_CLIENTPROJECTPATH, that contains the name and path of the current SAS Enterprise Guide project file. (To learn about this and other macro variables that SAS Enterprise Guide assigns,

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Charu ShankarJuly 8, 2011 0

64-bit SAS –Are you being served?

Last night I had a phone conversation with a car rental customer service rep (CSR) which went somewhat like this: Me - Hi, I’d like to rent a compact car for this Saturday in Toronto. CSR- Your name? Me- Do you have a car available? CSR-I need your name first.

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Programming Tips

Chris Hemedinger

Chris HemedingerJuly 8, 2011 0

Frequently asked questions about SAS 9.3 and SAS Enterprise Guide

As I write this, SAS 9.3 has not yet been "shipped", but its release is imminent. I've already heard many questions about how SAS Enterprise Guide works with the new version, so I decided to write this "Frequently-soon-to-be-asked questions" document to help sort it out. What version of SAS Enterprise

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Programming Tips

Miss SAS AnswersJuly 8, 2011 0

Dear Miss SAS Answers: Help me see my ODS output

Dear Miss SAS Answers, I have a problem getting PDF, HTML, and RTF output from the Output Delivery System (ODS). It asks me to connect to a remote browser. When I try that, I have a connection failure. I am using Base SAS 9.2 software. What am I doing wrong?

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Programming Tips | Students & Educators

Chris Hemedinger

Chris HemedingerJuly 7, 2011 0

Are you too good for code reviews?

The recent issue of InformationWeek features a Q&A session with Ken Thompson, one of the creators of the Unix operating system. (He collaborated with Dennis Ritchie, of C language fame. Since much of SAS is written in C, I daresay there are a few copies of K&R around here.) One

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Programming Tips

Chris Hemedinger

Chris HemedingerJune 25, 2011 0

Which tables contribute to that SAS information map?

About a year ago (wow, has it been that long?), I posted an example program that lets you report on the contents of a SAS information map. Using my example, you can see the data items, filters, and folder structure within a given information map. Last week a reader posted

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Charu ShankarJune 21, 2011 0

Is something missing or is it a ZERO?

As far as numbers go, the number zero is rather mysterious for data. Is it something or is it nothing? What happens when you have missing data but enter 0? This topic triggered an intriguing discussion in my recent Programming 2: Data Manipulation Techniques class. In this post I’d like

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Programming Tips

Chris Hemedinger

Chris HemedingerJune 21, 2011 0

What SAS administrators should know about libraries, metadata, and SAS Enterprise Guide

We sometimes take it for granted, but the concept of the "SAS library" is just about one of the most awesome aspects of The SAS System. You can give your library a name (a library reference, or libref), tell the system how to get to your data (options on a

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Programming Tips

Chris Hemedinger

Chris HemedingerJune 17, 2011 0

How to use SAS DATA step to copy a file from anywhere

SAS-based processes are critical to many organizations, but sometimes the trickiest part of your job falls into one or both of these activities: Getting stuff from the outside world "into" SAS. (Once it's in SAS, as many of you know, the world is your oyster.) Getting the output of your

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Programming Tips

Chris Hemedinger

Chris HemedingerMay 25, 2011 0

SAS Enterprise Guide options: my favorite 5

SAS Enterprise Guide has about 150 options that you can customize in the Tools->Options window. With each release, the development team adds a few more options that have been asked for by customers, and they rarely decommission any existing options. It's getting quite crowded on some of those options windows!

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Programming Tips

Chris Hemedinger

Chris HemedingerMay 18, 2011 0

Behind the scenes: importing Excel files using SAS Enterprise Guide

I hope that the following statement is not too controversial...but here it goes: Microsoft Excel is not a database system. That is, I know that people do use it as a database, but it's not an application that supports the rigor and discipline of managing data in the same way

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Programming Tips

Chris Hemedinger

Chris HemedingerMay 9, 2011 0

Calculating the number of working days between two dates

It's a simple task to use SAS to compute the number of weekdays between two dates. You can use the INTCK function with the WEEKDAY interval to come up with that number. diff = intck('WEEKDAY', start_date, end_date); If you want to compute the number of working days between two dates,

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Chris Hemedinger

Chris HemedingerMay 3, 2011 0

Using SAS Enterprise Guide to run programs in batch

SAS Enterprise Guide is best known as an interactive interface to SAS, but did you know that you can use it to run batch-style programs as well? SAS Enterprise Guide has always offered an automation object model, which allows you to use scripting languages (such as VBScript or Windows PowerShell)

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Programming Tips

Log transform data in SAS

Rick WicklinApril 27, 2011 0

Log transformations: How to handle negative data values?

The log transformation is one of the most useful transformations in data analysis. It is used as a transformation to normality and as a variance stabilizing transformation. A log transformation is often used as part of exploratory data analysis in order to visualize (and later model) data that ranges over

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Charu ShankarApril 25, 2011 0

Six reasons to love summer in Canada

Walking to work this sign caught my eye. I was moved as I’m sure you will be too – to see the lot of students universally. Like most folks, I’ve played different roles in life. Of them I would say that my part-time student role was the most challenging. My

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Charu ShankarApril 15, 2011 0

Where SAS trumps SQL- the easy way with Enterprise Guide

Just to set the record straight, I’m a programmer who loves to write code. While SAS Enterprise Guide (EG) does make reporting easier, this time it’s not the displays that caught my eye. EG won this round hands down for ease of use to summarize data. This blog post will

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Programming Tips

Waynette TubbsApril 6, 2011 0

Numeric Variables in SAS

~Contributed by Philip Busby, Applications Developer at SAS (@Philihp)~ My mind was blown just now at Paul Gorrell's talk on numeric values within SAS. The nice thing that hooks new programmers to SAS is how easy it is to do so many things, but what I find really makes a

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Programming Tips

Waynette TubbsApril 5, 2011 0

Running SAS PROCs on your Facebook friends

Contributed by Kirsten Hamstra, SAS Social Media Manager Prolific blogger and author of SAS for Dummies Chris Hemedinger knows maybe a little too much about his Facebook friends. Presenting his paper titled “Social Networking and SAS: Running PROCs on your Facebook Friends,” Chris shared basic techniques to analyze your friends

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Charu ShankarMarch 30, 2011 0

SAS Programmer Rule # 1

Let’s start with a quiz. Which of the following is the Programmer’s Rule # 1? 1. Expert knowledge of multiple languages, like SAS and Java 2. Talent to maneuver with complex algorithms 3. Innate ability to draw flowcharts 4. None of the above Dear reader, as a savvy programmer, you

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Programming Tips

Chris Hemedinger

Chris HemedingerMarch 29, 2011 0

Undocumented features: there's a reason they are not documented

Many SAS users love "undocumented features" within SAS software that they have found or heard about. Sometimes they can be really useful, and the fact that they are undocumented adds to the mystique. Some users have written entire conference papers on the subject. After 35 years of evolution, SAS contains

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Programming Tips

Chris Hemedinger

Chris HemedingerMarch 2, 2011 0

Using ODS Graphics Designer with SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3

The ODS Graphics Designer allows you to design and build your own statistical graphs in SAS, without having to learn how to program in the new graph template language (GTL). The ODS Graphics Designer is a rich user interface that allows you to design these graphs based upon your own

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Charu ShankarFebruary 23, 2011 0

Top 5 SAS programming best practices

I’m sure you will all agree that a programmer’s favorite task is to maximize efficiency thus enhancing performance. Dear reader, in this blog post I’ll share my best programming practices so that you can benefit from what I typically show my students in class. At the end I’d like to

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Programming Tips

Mark StevensFebruary 22, 2011 0

Sometimes It's the Journey, Not the Destination

Recently, I read Dr. AnnMaria De Mars' blog post "Translating Ruby to SAS (or vice versa)." I found that I really liked it, and not just because she mentions me (although that was pretty cool). But rather, I like the end of the post, where she identifies a key value

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Programming Tips

Chris Hemedinger

Chris HemedingerFebruary 17, 2011 0

Putting the squeeze on your SAS data sets

I've known several people who were raised during the Great Depression, and I've observed that they are very mindful of waste. My wife's grandmother used to save plastic bags, twist ties, and relatively clean aluminum foil for potential reuse in the household -- because such materials were once scarce. The

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