The SAS Training Post

Jedi SAS Tricks: FUNC(y) Formats

Mark Jordan — Thu, 10 May 2012 17:44:25 +0000

In the previous episode, we built our own custom SAS function - a masterful trick indeed. Gordon Keener, a developer here at SAS, responded exuberantly "You think that's cool? - try THIS!" and proceeded to demonstrate prodigious powers with the SAS by using a custom function in a custom informat [...]

#1 SAS programming tip for 2012

Charu Shankar — Thu, 10 May 2012 15:03:17 +0000

What tiny looking operator packs a mighty punch with large datasets? Your queries are big. Your reports span multiple columns. To top it all you have to summarize data in multiple ways. Are you tempted to throw in the towel? Do you feel like saying a firm “Can’t be done” [...]

Jedi SAS Tricks – Roll Your Own Function

Mark Jordan — Thu, 03 May 2012 12:57:07 +0000

A SAS user (who lives in the the US) emailed me a question about SAS functions. He was reading UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) datetime values from server logs, and to make future calculations and comparisons easier, he wanted to transform the value to local datetime. The INTNX() function worked great, but [...]

ESTIMATE Statements - the final installment

Chris Daman — Wed, 02 May 2012 17:56:35 +0000

FINALLY…the simplest ESTIMATE statements to write are for continuous variables not involved in interactions or higher order terms. Consider a data set containing the 2004 SAT scores for each of the 50 states. The file includes the combined math and verbal SAT scores (TOTAL), the state (STATE) and the percent [...]

Two opportunities for students at Analytics 2012

Carrie Vetter — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 12:44:06 +0000

I’m excited to let you know about two opportunities for students at the Analytics 2012 Conference, Oct. 8-9 in Las Vegas. The first is the Student Poster Contest. If you have some research to share with the analytics community, consider submitting an abstract. If your abstract is accepted, then you [...]

Taking the storyboard approach

Brooke Fortson — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 19:29:36 +0000

A storyboard is a blueprint of drawings/ideas in a specific sequence to illustrate a story. Let’s take the Pixar film Toy Story as an example (I have a two-year-old and admittedly have watched this movie more than the hairs on my head). Before they ever began animating with the design [...]

"Easy button" for ESTIMATE statements

Chris Daman — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 12:13:09 +0000

My previous blog demonstrated the most difficult type of ESTIMATE statement to write—a two-way (or higher) ANOVA with interactions. An "easy button" for ESTIMATE statement comes by having a simpler model. Models with only main effects and no interactions make writing ESTIMATE statements straightforward. Consider first a one-way ANOVA. A [...]

Go home on time with these 5 PROC SQL tips

Charu Shankar — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 11:00:06 +0000

How can you go home on time? Take a quick tour with these 5 tips that I was able to summarize for my students in the SAS SQL 1: Essentials class yesterday. Since they found it handy and asked if it could become a blog post, I thought I’d share [...]

The magical ESTIMATE (and CONTRAST) statements

Chris Daman — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 10:03:42 +0000

When asked to select the best (or worst) of something in a business setting, do you wish you had "magic glasses" to see the answer? PROC GLM and other statistical modeling procedures have their own versions of such an item with their ESTIMATE (and CONTRAST) statements. They allow you to [...]

125 years of experience can't be wrong

Michele Reister — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 10:14:01 +0000

Occasionally we see students in our more advanced courses who have skipped the Programming 1: Essentials class. Usually they are familiar with SAS or other programming languages. Sometimes they are even fluent and proficient in other programming languages. They feel comfortable skipping the basics and moving on to other classes, [...]