SAS Programming and Data Visualization Techniques: A Power User’s Guide

SAS Programming and Data Visualization Techniques: A Power User’s Guide brings together a wealth of ideas about strategic and tactical solutions to everyday situations experienced when transferring, extracting, processing, analyzing, and reporting the valuable data you have at your fingertips. Best, you can achieve most of the solutions using the SAS components you already license, meaning that this book’s insights can keep you from throwing money at problems needlessly.

Author Philip R. Holland advises a broad range of clients throughout Europe and the United States as an independent consultant and founder of Holland Numerics Ltd, a SAS technical consultancy. In this book he explains techniques—through code samples and example—that will enable you to increase your knowledge of all aspects of SAS programming, improve your coding productivity, and interface SAS with other programs.

He also provides an expert’s overview of Graph Templates, which was recently moved into Base SAS. You will learn to create attractive, standardized, reusable, and platform-independent graphs—both statistical and non-statistical—to help you and your business users explore, visualize, and capitalize on your company’s data. In addition, you will find many examples and cases pertaining to healthcare, finance, retail, and other industries.

Among other things, SAS Programming and Data Visualization Techniques will show you how to:

• Write efficient and reusable SAS code
• Combine look-up data sets with larger data sets effectively
• Run R and Perl from SAS
• Run SAS programs from SAS Studio and Enterprise Guide
• Output data into insightful, valuable charts and graphs

SAS Programming and Data Visualization Techniques prepares you to make better use of your existing SAS components by learning to use the newest features, improve your coding efficiency, help you develop applications that are easier to maintain, and make data analysis easier. In other words, it will save you time, money, and effort—and make you a more valuable member of the development team.

What you’ll learn

• How to write more efficient SAS code—either code that runs quicker, code that is easier to maintain, or both
• How to do more with the SAS components you already license
• How to take advantage of the newest features in SAS
• How to interface external applications with SAS software
• How to create graphs using SAS ODS Graphics

Who this book is for

SAS programmers wanting to improve their existing programming skills, and programming managers wanting to make better use of the SAS software they already license.

Table of Contents

Part I: Programming Efficiency Techniques
Chapter 1: The Basics of Efficient SAS Coding
Chapter 2: How to Use Lookup Tables Effectively
Chapter 3: Case: SAS Skills in Epidemiology

Part II: External Interfaces
Chapter 4: SAS to R to SAS
Chapter 5: Knit Perl and SAS Software for DIY Web Applications
Chapter 6: Running SAS Programs in Enterprise Guide
Chapter 7: Running SAS Programs in SAS Studio or Enterprise Guide
Chapter 8: Everyday Uses for SAS Output Delivery System (ODS)

Part III: Data Visualization
Chapter 9: Introduction to Graph Templates and ODS Graphics Procedures
Chapter 10: Generating Graph Templates
Chapter 11: Converting SAS/GRAPH Plots to ODS Graphics
Chapter 12: Converting SAS/GRAPH Annotate to ODS Graphics
Chapter 13: Customizing Graph Templates
Chapter 14: ODS GRAPHICS Statement