Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerApril 12, 2011 0

Hammer time with high school students

This morning I delivered a talk to visiting high school students at the SAS campus. The topic: using SAS to analyze Twitter content. Being teenagers, high school students are well familiar with Twitter. But this batch of students was also very familiar with SAS, as they all have taken SAS

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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 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 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

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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Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerFebruary 4, 2011 0

New Goodies for SAS Programmers: View it now

Millions of Americans will be gathering around the television this Sunday to watch Super Bowl XLV. They'll gather in bars and private homes, prepare billions of calories worth of snacks, and root for their favorite teams. But if you're looking for an alternate form of entertainment, why not watch "New

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Charu ShankarJanuary 24, 2011 0

Find your data pattern with Perl

Who doesn’t like bargains? I’m sure you will all agree that good quality at a next-to-nothing cost is irresistible. My recent Dollarama run had me ecstatic about the gloves that come in all colours, styles and sizes for just over a dollar. (Fact: big retail stores charge over 10 times

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Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerJanuary 19, 2011 0

Who am I to judge?

Tomorrow I'll be taking a few hours away from work to build something important: the self-esteems of a handful of middle-school-aged children. I'm volunteering as a judge in a middle-school science fair. And even though I'm not a scientist ("computer science" isn't a category), I understand enough about physical science

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Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerJanuary 10, 2011 0

You asked for it: the Autoexec process flow

AUTOEXEC.SAS wasn't enough for you. Yes, it's a sure-fire way to run SAS statements (such as LIBNAME assignments or macro definitions) whenever you start your SAS session, but you found it has limitations when used in configurations with lots of users who connect with SAS Enterprise Guide. Limitations such as:

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Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerDecember 23, 2010 0

The SAS code formatter: more than a pretty face

A customer phoned up SAS Technical Support the other day with a problem. (Yes, that happens occasionally...) When he ran a certain program through SAS Enterprise Guide, the program didn't seem to complete and no results were returned. Here is a snippet of the program (modified a bit to make

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Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerDecember 17, 2010 0

SAS logs in Enterprise Guide: Where's the beef?

You might be too young to remember Clara Peller. She was the star of a series of fast-food burger commercials in the 1980s, in which she demanded meatier meals by shouting "Where's the beef?" at the pickup counter or drive-through window. Alas, the competitor restaurant meals were afflicted with "Fluffy

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Charu ShankarDecember 17, 2010 0

Five reasons to use the SAS DATA Step or PROC SQL

When I joined SAS Institute I had no knowledge of SAS. I studied, researched and practiced. The questions I asked would make even the most seasoned programmer blush a beetroot red! Those were an intense nine months—I’ll tell you more in a later post about the learning system at SAS

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Advanced Analytics | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinDecember 10, 2010 0

Converting between correlation and covariance matrices

Both covariance matrices and correlation matrices are used frequently in multivariate statistics. You can easily compute covariance and correlation matrices from data by using SAS software. However, sometimes you are given a covariance matrix, but your numerical technique requires a correlation matrix. Other times you are given a correlation matrix,

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Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerDecember 8, 2010 0

In-your-face SETINIT warnings, at a desktop near you

I connect to more SAS server environments than your average SAS user. In a given week, I probably run SAS Enterprise Guide connecting to at least five different Windows-based servers, a few Unix-based servers, and maybe even a z/OS machine as well. With that many SAS environments, I'm bound to

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Advanced Analytics | Programming Tips

Rick WicklinDecember 8, 2010 0

Computing covariance and correlation matrices

Sample covariance matrices and correlation matrices are used frequently in multivariate statistics. This post shows how to compute these matrices in SAS and use them in a SAS/IML program. There are two ways to compute these matrices: Compute the covariance and correlation with PROC CORR and read the results into

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Programming Tips

Catherine (Cat) TruxilloDecember 2, 2010 0

Weekday Morning Quick-trick: How to Score from PROC VARCLUS

Have you used multivariate procedures in SAS and wanted to save out scores? Some procedures, such as FACTOR, CANDISC, CANCORR, PRINCOMP, and others have an OUT= option to save scores to the input data set. However, to score a new data set, or to perform scoring with multivariate procedures that

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Learn SAS | Programming Tips

Charu ShankarNovember 29, 2010 0

How SAS engines can read a range of data in Excel

Japan has a superfast train called the Shinkansen. The first I heard of it was when my sister visited Japan on a scholarship. Engine-awestruck, we wanted a ride, but weren’t able to get to Japan. Nor, did we know the language. (With over 5000 kanjis, it took my sister 3

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Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerNovember 24, 2010 0

Calculating the UTC offset in your SAS session

Update 25Nov2010: I've updated this example to correct the code so that it works correctly for positive UTC offsets. Thanks to Bruno Müller, my colleague at SAS, for finding my mistakes. One of my SAS colleagues was recently working on a project where she had to create reports that include

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Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerNovember 23, 2010 0

Five strategies to eliminate passwords from your SAS programs

Many people mistakenly assume that just because you want to use a SAS program to access a protected resource (such as a database table), you must include the credentials for the resource inside your program. Few things cause a database administrator to lose more sleep than coming across this within

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Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerNovember 22, 2010 0

Process Explorer: tools for the SAS admin on Windows

It was over two years ago that I shared the tip of using Process Explorer to look under the covers at which SAS processes were running on your Windows environment. Process Explorer recently received a refresh, and it's worth downloading the new version. (Yes, it's free.) If you want to

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Programming Tips

SAS JediNovember 19, 2010 0

Jedi SAS Tricks: Custom PDF Bookmarks

I was building a nice little PDF report the other day.  I love the way ODS PDF replicates the SAS Results window navigation structure as PDF bookmarks, but... I'd much rather write the text for the bookmarks myself.  So, I decided to "use the SAS" and make ODS do my

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Programming Tips

Mike KaltNovember 19, 2010 0

Why Can't SAS Read My CSV file?

Many SAS users receive data in the form of CSV (Comma Separated Value) files, and need to convert them to SAS data sets. A typical record in a CSV file might look like this: Jeter,Derek,1995,,234,”22,600,000” Note the following about the record above: There is no data for the fourth field,

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Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerNovember 16, 2010 0

Look before you buy: peek at your data details before opening

Are you afraid of big commitments? Do you like to shop around thoroughly before making a purchase decision? I can't help you with most of Life's Big Choices, but I can help you in one way: I can show you how to learn more about your data set before you

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Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerNovember 10, 2010 0

An "Enterprise Guide" in a parallel universe

Dear Readers, You might visit this blog for many reasons, chief among them to learn useful information about SAS. You know that I often post tips about SAS Enterprise Guide, and sometimes people go so far as to call this a "SAS Enterprise Guide" blog*. But for all of the

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Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerNovember 3, 2010 0

Peek at your data using VBScript, OLE DB, and the SAS local data provider

Let's pretend for a moment that you don't have SAS installed on all of your office computers. But you've got some great content locked away inside SAS data sets. Is there a way to get to the content of that data, without having to push the data through a SAS

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Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerOctober 27, 2010 0

SAS Enterprise Guide 4.1: it's not dead yet

Are you up to date on your hotfixes for SAS Enterprise Guide 4.1? If you're not certain of the answer, you'll find out next week when you might see this message appear: This version of SAS Enterprise Guide will expire on December 1st, 2010. If you've applied any SAS Enterprise

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Programming Tips

Chris HemedingerOctober 25, 2010 0

SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3 Tutorials in your language

We've just pushed out the localized versions of the Getting Started with SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3 tutorial. This is the tutorial that you'll see when you select Help->Getting Started Tutorial from within SAS Enterprise Guide. Here is a list of the supported languages, and links to the tutorial content: English

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