Learning SAS by Example

Learning SAS by Example

by Ron Cody
Released July 2018
Publisher(s): SAS Institute
ISBN: 9781635266566

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Book description

Learn to program SAS by example!

Learning SAS by Example, A Programmer’s Guide, Second Edition, teaches SAS programming from very basic concepts to more advanced topics. Because most programmers prefer examples rather than reference-type syntax, this book uses short examples to explain each topic. The second edition has brought this classic book on SAS programming up to the latest SAS version, with new chapters that cover topics such as PROC SGPLOT and Perl regular expressions. This book belongs on the shelf (or e-book reader) of anyone who programs in SAS, from those with little programming experience who want to learn SAS to intermediate and even advanced SAS programmers who want to learn new techniques or identify new ways to accomplish existing tasks.

In an instructive and conversational tone, author Ron Cody clearly explains each programming technique and then illustrates it with one or more real-life examples, followed by a detailed description of how the program works. The text is divided into four major sections: Getting Started, DATA Step Processing, Presenting and Summarizing Your Data, and Advanced Topics. Subjects addressed include

  • Reading data from external sources
  • Learning details of DATA step programming
  • Subsetting and combining SAS data sets
  • Understanding SAS functions and working with arrays
  • Creating reports with PROC REPORT and PROC TABULATE
  • Getting started with the SAS macro language
  • Leveraging PROC SQL
  • Generating high-quality graphics
  • Using advanced features of user-defined formats and informats
  • Restructuring SAS data sets
  • Working with multiple observations per subject
  • Getting started with Perl regular expressions

You can test your knowledge and hone your skills by solving the problems at the end of each chapter.

Table of contents

  1. List of Programs
  2. Preface
  3. About This Book
  4. About the Author
  5. Acknowledgments
  6. Part 1: Getting Started
    1. Chapter 1: What Is SAS?
      1. 1.1      Introduction
      2. 1.2      Getting Data into SAS
      3. 1.3      A Sample SAS Program
      4. 1.4      SAS Names
      5. 1.5      SAS Data Sets and SAS Data Types
      6. 1.6      The SAS Windowing Environment, SAS Enterprise Guide, and the SAS University Edition
      7. 1.7      Problems
    2. Chapter 2: Writing Your First SAS Program
      1. 2.1      A Simple Program to Read Raw Data and Produce a Report
      2. 2.2      Enhancing the Program
      3. 2.3      More on Comment Statements
      4. 2.4      How SAS Works (a Look inside the “Black Box”)
      5. 2.5      Problems
  7. Part 2: DATA Step Processing
    1. Chapter 3: Reading Raw Data from External Files
      1. 3.1      Introduction
      2. 3.2      Reading Data Values Separated by Blanks
      3. 3.3      Specifying Missing Values with List Input
      4. 3.4      Reading Data Values Separated by Commas (CSV Files)
      5. 3.5      Using an alternative Method to Specify an External File
      6. 3.6      Reading Data Values Separated by Delimiters Other Than Blanks or Commas
      7. 3.7      Placing Data Lines Directly in Your Program (the DATALINES Statement)
      8. 3.8      Specifying INFILE Options with the DATALINES Statement
      9. 3.9      Reading Raw Data from Fixed Columns—Method 1: Column Input
      10. 3.10    Reading Raw Data from Fixed Columns—Method 2: Formatted Input
      11. 3.11    Using a FORMAT Statement in a DATA Step versus in a Procedure
      12. 3.12    Using Informats with List Input
      13. 3.13    Supplying an INFORMAT Statement with List Input
      14. 3.14    Using List Input with Embedded Delimiters
      15. 3.15    Problems
    2. Chapter 4: Creating Permanent SAS Data Sets
      1. 4.1      Introduction
      2. 4.2      SAS Libraries—The LIBNAME Statement
      3. 4.3      Why Create Permanent SAS Data Sets?
      4. 4.4      Examining the Descriptor Portion of a SAS Data Set Using PROC CONTENTS
      5. 4.5      Listing All the SAS Data Sets in a SAS Library Using PROC CONTENTS
      6. 4.6      Viewing the Descriptor Portion of a SAS Data Set Using a Point-and-Click Approach
      7. 4.7      Viewing the Data Portion of a SAS Data Set Using PROC PRINT
      8. 4.8      Using a SAS Data Set as Input to a DATA Step
      9. 4.9      DATA _NULL_: A Data Set That Isn’t
      10. 4.10    Problems
    3. Chapter 5: Creating Labels and Formats
      1. 5.1      Adding Labels to Your Variables
      2. 5.2      Using Formats to Enhance Your Output
      3. 5.3      Regrouping Values Using Formats
      4. 5.4      More on Format Ranges
      5. 5.5      Storing Your Formats in a Format Library
      6. 5.6      Permanent Data Set Attributes
      7. 5.7      Accessing a Permanent SAS Data Set with User-Defined Formats
      8. 5.8      Displaying Your Format Definitions
      9. 5.9      Problems
    4. Chapter 6: Reading and Writing Data from an Excel Spreadsheet
      1. 6.1      Introduction
      2. 6.2      Using the Import Wizard to Convert a Spreadsheet to a SAS Data Set
      3. 6.3      Creating an Excel Spreadsheet from a SAS Data Set
      4. 6.4      Using an Engine to Read an Excel Spreadsheet
      5. 6.5      Using the SAS Output Delivery System to Convert a SAS Data Set to an Excel Spreadsheet
      6. 6.6      A Quick Look at the Import Utility in SAS Studio
      7. 6.7      Problems
    5. Chapter 7: Performing Conditional Processing
      1. 7.1      Introduction
      2. 7.2      The IF and ELSE IF Statements
      3. 7.3      The Subsetting IF Statement
      4. 7.4      The IN Operator
      5. 7.5      Using a SELECT Statement for Logical Tests
      6. 7.6      Using Boolean Logic (AND, OR, and NOT Operators)
      7. 7.7      A Caution When Using Multiple OR Operators
      8. 7.8      The WHERE Statement
      9. 7.9      Some Useful WHERE Operators
      10. 7.10    Problems
    6. Chapter 8: Performing Iterative Processing: Looping
      1. 8.1      Introduction
      2. 8.2      DO Groups
      3. 8.3      The Sum Statement
      4. 8.4      The Iterative DO Loop
      5. 8.5      Other Forms of an Iterative DO Loop
      6. 8.6      DO WHILE and DO UNTIL Statements
      7. 8.7      A Caution When Using DO UNTIL Statements
      8. 8.8      LEAVE and CONTINUE Statements
      9. 8.9      Problems
    7. Chapter 9: Working with Dates
      1. 9.1      Introduction
      2. 9.2      How SAS Stores Dates
      3. 9.3      Reading Date Values from Text Data
      4. 9.4      Computing the Number of Years between Two Dates
      5. 9.5      Demonstrating a Date Constant
      6. 9.6      Computing the Current Date
      7. 9.7      Extracting the Day of the Week, Day of the Month, Month, and Year from a SAS Date
      8. 9.8      Creating a SAS Date from Month, Day, and Year Values
      9. 9.9      Substituting the 15th of the Month when the Day Value Is Missing
      10. 9.10    Using Date Interval Functions
      11. 9.11    Problems
    8. Chapter 10: Subsetting and Combining SAS Data Sets
      1. 10.1    Introduction
      2. 10.2    Subsetting a SAS Data Set
      3. 10.3    Creating More Than One Subset Data Set in One DATA Step
      4. 10.4    Adding Observations to a SAS Data Set
      5. 10.5    Interleaving Data Sets
      6. 10.6    Combining Detail and Summary Data
      7. 10.7    Merging Two Data Sets
      8. 10.8    Omitting the BY Statement in a Merge
      9. 10.9    Controlling Observations in a Merged Data Set
      10. 10.10   More Uses for IN= Variables
      11. 10.11   When Does a DATA Step End?
      12. 10.12   Merging Two Data Sets with Different BY Variable Names
      13. 10.13   Merging Two Data Sets with Different BY Variable Data Types
      14. 10.14   One-to-One, One-to-Many, and Many-to-Many Merges
      15. 10.15   Updating a Master File from a Transaction File
      16. 10.16   Problems
    9. Chapter 11: Working with Numeric Functions
      1. 11.1    Introduction
      2. 11.2    Functions That Round and Truncate Numeric Values
      3. 11.3    Functions That Work with Missing Values
      4. 11.4    Setting Character and Numeric Values to Missing
      5. 11.5    Descriptive Statistics Functions
      6. 11.6    Computing Sums within an Observation
      7. 11.7    Mathematical Functions
      8. 11.8    Computing Some Useful Constants
      9. 11.9    Generating Random Numbers
      10. 11.10   Special Functions
      11. 11.11   Functions That Return Values from Previous Observations
      12. 11.12   Sorting Within an Observations—a Game Changer
      13. 11.13   Problems
    10. Chapter 12: Working with Character Functions
      1. 12.1    Introduction
      2. 12.2    Determining the Length of a Character Value
      3. 12.3    Changing the Case of Characters
      4. 12.4    Removing Characters from Strings
      5. 12.5    Joining Two or More Strings Together
      6. 12.6    Removing Leading or Trailing Blanks
      7. 12.7    Using the COMPRESS Function to Remove Characters from a String
      8. 12.8    Searching for Characters
      9. 12.9    Searching for Individual Characters
      10. 12.10   Searching for Words in a String
      11. 12.11   Searching for Character Classes
      12. 12.12   Using the NOT Functions for Data Cleaning
      13. 12.13   Extracting Part of a String
      14. 12.14   Dividing Strings into Words
      15. 12.15   Performing a Fuzzy Match
      16. 12.16   Substituting Strings or Words
      17. 12.17   Problems
    11. Chapter 13: Working with Arrays
      1. 13.1    Introduction
      2. 13.2    Setting Values of 999 to a SAS Missing Value for Several Numeric Variables
      3. 13.3    Setting Values of NA and ? to a Missing Character Value
      4. 13.4    Converting All Character Values to Propercase
      5. 13.5    Using an Array to Create New Variables
      6. 13.6    Changing the Array Bounds
      7. 13.7    Temporary Arrays
      8. 13.8    Loading the Initial Values of a Temporary Array from a Raw Data File
      9. 13.9    Using a Multidimensional Array for Table Lookup
      10. 13.10   Problems
  8. Part 3: Presenting and Summarizing Your Data
    1. Chapter 14: Displaying Your Data
      1. 14.1    Introduction
      2. 14.2    The Basics
      3. 14.3    Changing the Appearance of Your Listing
      4. 14.4    Changing the Appearance of Values
      5. 14.5    Controlling the Observations That Appear in Your Listing
      6. 14.6    Adding Titles and Footnotes to Your Listing
      7. 14.7    Changing the Order of Your Listing
      8. 14.8    Sorting by More Than One Variable
      9. 14.9    Labeling Your Column Headings
      10. 14.10   Adding Subtotals and Totals to Your Listing
      11. 14.11   Making Your Listing Easier to Read
      12. 14.12   Adding the Number of Observations to Your Listing
      13. 14.13   Listing the First n Observations of Your Data Set
      14. 14.14   Problems
    2. Chapter 15: Creating Customized Reports
      1. 15.1    Introduction
      2. 15.2    Using PROC REPORT
      3. 15.3    Selecting the Variables to Include in Your Report
      4. 15.4    Comparing Detail and Summary Reports
      5. 15.5    Producing a Summary Report
      6. 15.6    Demonstrating the FLOW Option of PROC REPORT
      7. 15.7    Using Two Grouping Variables
      8. 15.8    Changing the Order of Variables in the COLUMN Statement
      9. 15.9    Changing the Order of Rows in a Report
      10. 15.10   Applying the ORDER Usage to Two Variables
      11. 15.11   Creating a Multi-Column Report
      12. 15.12   Producing Report Breaks
      13. 15.13   Using a Nonprinting Variable to Order a Report
      14. 15.14   Computing a New Variable with PROC REPORT
      15. 15.15   Computing a Character Variable in a COMPUTE Block
      16. 15.16   Creating an ACROSS Variable with PROC REPORT
      17. 15.17   Using an ACROSS Usage to Display Statistics
      18. 15.18   Problems
    3. Chapter 16: Summarizing Your Data
      1. 16.1    Introduction
      2. 16.2    PROC MEANS—Starting from the Beginning
      3. 16.3    Adding a BY Statement to PROC MEANS
      4. 16.4    Using a CLASS Statement with PROC MEANS
      5. 16.5    Applying a Format to a CLASS Variable
      6. 16.6    Deciding between a BY Statement and a CLASS Statement
      7. 16.7    Creating Summary Data Sets Using PROC MEANS
      8. 16.8    Outputting Other Descriptive Statistics with PROC MEANS
      9. 16.9    Asking SAS to Name the Variables in the Output Data Set
      10. 16.10   Outputting a Summary Data Set: Including a BY Statement
      11. 16.11   Outputting a Summary Data Set: Using a CLASS Statement
      12. 16.12   Using Two CLASS Variables with PROC MEANS
      13. 16.13   Selecting Different Statistics for Each Variable
      14. 16.14 Printing all Possible Combinations of Your Class Variables
      15. 16.15   Problems
    4. Chapter 17: Counting Frequencies
      1. 17.1    Introduction
      2. 17.2    Counting Frequencies
      3. 17.3    Selecting Variables for PROC FREQ
      4. 17.4    Using Formats to Label the Output
      5. 17.5    Using Formats to Group Values
      6. 17.6    Problems Grouping Values with PROC FREQ
      7. 17.7    Displaying Missing Values in the Frequency Table
      8. 17.8    Changing the Order of Values in PROC FREQ
      9. 17.9    Producing Two-Way Tables
      10. 17.10   Requesting Multiple Two-Way Tables
      11. 17.11   Producing Three-Way Tables
      12. 17.12   Problems
    5. Chapter 18: Creating Tabular Reports
      1. 18.1    Introduction
      2. 18.2    A Simple PROC TABULATE Table
      3. 18.3    Describing the Three PROC TABULATE Operators
      4. 18.4    Using the Keyword ALL
      5. 18.5    Producing Descriptive Statistics
      6. 18.6    Combining CLASS and Analysis Variables in a Table
      7. 18.7    Customizing Your Table
      8. 18.8    Demonstrating a More Complex Table
      9. 18.9    Computing Row and Column Percentages
      10. 18.10   Displaying Percentages in a Two-Dimensional Table
      11. 18.11   Computing Column Percentages
      12. 18.12   Computing Percentages on Numeric Variables
      13. 18.13   Understanding How Missing Values Affect PROC TABULATE Output
      14. 18.14   Problems
    6. Chapter 19: Introducing the Output Delivery System
      1. 19.1    Introduction
      2. 19.2    Sending SAS Output to an HTML File
      3. 19.3    Creating a Table of Contents
      4. 19.4    Selecting a Different HTML Style
      5. 19.5    Choosing Other ODS Destinations
      6. 19.6    Selecting or Excluding Portions of SAS Output
      7. 19.7    Sending Output to a SAS Data Set
      8. 19.8    Problems
    7. Chapter 20: Creating Charts and Graphs
      1. 20.1    Introduction
      2. 20.2     Creating Bar Charts
      3. 20.3     Displaying Statistics for a Response Variable
      4. 20.4     Creating Scatter Plots
      5. 20.5     Adding a Regression Line and Confidence Limits to the Plot
      6. 20.6     Generating Time Series Plots
      7. 20.7     Describing Two Methods of Generating Smooth Curves
      8. 20.8     Generating Histograms
      9. 20.9     Generating a Simple Box Plot
      10. 20.10   Producing a Box Plot with a Grouping Variable
      11. 20.11   Demonstrating Overlays and Transparency
      12. 20.12   Problems
  9. Part 4: Advanced Topics
    1. Chapter 21: Using Advanced INPUT Techniques
      1. 21.1    Introduction
      2. 21.2    Handling Missing Values at the End of a Line
      3. 21.3    Reading Short Data Lines
      4. 21.4    Reading External Files with Lines Longer Than 32,767 Characters
      5. 21.5    Detecting the End of the File
      6. 21.6    Reading a Portion of a Raw Data File
      7. 21.7    Reading Data from Multiple Files
      8. 21.8    Reading Data from Multiple Files Using a FILENAME Statement
      9. 21.9    Reading External Filenames from a Data File
      10. 21.10   Reading Multiple Lines of Data to Create One Observation
      11. 21.11   Reading Data Conditionally (the Single Trailing @ Sign)
      12. 21.12   More Examples of the Single Trailing @ Sign
      13. 21.13   Creating Multiple Observations from One Line of Input
      14. 21.14   Using Variable and Informat Lists
      15. 21.15   Using Relative Column Pointers to Read a Complex Data Structure Efficiently
      16. 21.16   Problems
    2. Chapter 22: Using Advanced Features of User-Defined Formats and Informats
      1. 22.1    Introduction
      2. 22.2    Using Formats to Recode Variables
      3. 22.3    Using Formats with a PUT Function to Create New Variables
      4. 22.4    Creating User-Defined Informats
      5. 22.5    Reading Character and Numeric Data in One Step
      6. 22.6    Using Formats (and Informats) to Perform Table Lookup
      7. 22.7    Using a SAS Data Set to Create a Format
      8. 22.8    Updating and Maintaining Your Formats
      9. 22.9    Using Formats within Formats
      10. 22.10   Multilabel Formats
      11. 22.11   Using the INPUTN Function to Perform a More Complicated Table Lookup
      12. 22.12   Problems
    3. Chapter 23: Restructuring SAS Data Sets
      1. 23.1    Introduction
      2. 23.2    Converting a Data Set with One Observation per Subject to a Data Set with Several Observations per Subject: Using a DATA Step
      3. 23.3    Converting a Data Set with Several Observations per Subject to a Data Set with One Observation per Subject: Using a DATA Step
      4. 23.4    Converting a Data Set with One Observation per Subject to a Data Set with Several Observations per Subject: Using PROC TRANSPOSE
      5. 23.5    Converting a Data Set with Several Observations per Subject to a Data Set with One Observation per Subject: Using PROC TRANSPOSE
      6. 23.6    Problems
    4. Chapter 24: Working with Multiple Observations per Subject
      1. 24.1    Introduction
      2. 24.2    Identifying the First or Last Observation in a Group
      3. 24.3    Counting the Number of Visits Using PROC FREQ
      4. 24.4    Computing Differences between Observations
      5. 24.5    Computing Differences between the First and Last Observation in a BY Group Using the LAG Function
      6. 24.6    Computing Differences between the First and Last Observation in a BY Group Using a RETAIN Statement
      7. 24.7    Using a Retained Variable to “Remember” a Previous Value
      8. 24.8    Problems
    5. Chapter 25: Introducing the SAS Macro Language
      1. 25.1    Introduction
      2. 25.2    Macro Variables: What Are They?
      3. 25.3    Some Built-In Macro Variables
      4. 25.4    Assigning Values to Macro Variables with a %LET Statement
      5. 25.5    Demonstrating a Simple Macro
      6. 25.6    Describing Positional and Keyword Macro Parameters
      7. 25.7    A Word about Tokens
      8. 25.8    Another Example of Using a Macro Variable as a Prefix
      9. 25.9    Using a Macro Variable to Transfer a Value between DATA Steps
      10. 25.10   Problems
    6. Chapter 26: Introducing the Structured Query Language
      1. 26.1    Introduction
      2. 26.2    Some Basics
      3. 26.3    Joining Two Tables (Merge)
      4. 26.4    Left, Right, and Full Joins
      5. 26.5    Concatenating Data Sets
      6. 26.6    Using Summary Functions
      7. 26.7    Demonstrating the ORDER Clause
      8. 26.8    An Example of Fuzzy Matching
      9. 26.9    Problems
    7. Chapter 27: Introducing Perl Regular Expressions
      1. 27.1    Introduction
      2. 27.2     Describing the Syntax of Regular Expressions
      3. 27.3     Testing That Social Security Numbers Are in Standard Form
      4. 27.4     Checking for Valid ZIP Codes
      5. 27.5     Verifying That Phone Numbers Are in a Standard Form
      6. 27.6     Describing the PRXPARSE Function
      7. 27.7    Problems
  10. Solutions to Odd-Numbered Exercises
  11. Index

Product information

  • Title: Learning SAS by Example
  • Author(s): Ron Cody
  • Release date: July 2018
  • Publisher(s): SAS Institute
  • ISBN: 9781635266566