Blogs

Blogs

Programming Tips

Strengthen your programming skills with tips and techniques from the experts

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

Read More

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

Read More

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,

Read More

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

Read More

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

Read More

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

Read More

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

Read More

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

Read More

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

Read More

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!

Read More

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

Read More

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,

Read More

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)

Read More

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

Read More

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

Read More

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

Read More

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

Read More

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

Read More

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

Read More

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

Read More

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

Read More

Programming Tips

Chris Hemedinger

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

Read More

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

Read More

Programming Tips

Chris Hemedinger

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

Read More

Programming Tips

Chris Hemedinger

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:

Read More

Programming Tips

Chris Hemedinger

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

Read More

Programming Tips

Chris Hemedinger

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

Read More

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

Read More

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,

Read More

Previous 1 … 61 62 63 64 65 66 Next