SAS Programming and Data Visualization Techniques, 1st ed.
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 reus

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

Part One: Programming Efficiency Techniques

How to make use of SAS programming techniques to match the way SAS programs and data are going to be used.

Chapter 1: The Basics of Efficient SAS Coding

How to write SAS programs to balance the demands of execution speed and maintenance.

Chapter 2: How to Use Look-up Tables Effectively

There are many different ways to combine small look-up data sets with larger SAS data sets; this chapter shows how to use the most appropriate and efficient method depending on the circumstances.

Chapter 3: Case: SAS Skills in Epidemiology

In epidemiology, most data sets from SAS and other databases are big, and SAS programmers need particular skills to work with data. This case illustrates principles that work for programmers dealing with large databases in all industries.

Part Two: External Interfaces

This part shows how to interface SAS with external applications.

Chapter 4: SAS to R to SAS

How to run R programs from SAS programs, and then combine the results into a single output.

Chapter 5: Knit Perl and SAS for DIY Web Applications

How to run SAS programs from web pages by using a server-based dispatching program written in Perl.

Chapter 6: Case: Running Clinical Trials Programs in Enterprise Guide

Enterprise Guide is a W

Chapter 7: Running SAS Programs in SAS Studio

SAS Studio was first included in the latest maintenance release, 9.4. This chapter explains how to best employ SAS Studio, a browser-based client for SAS that has many similarities with Enterprise Guide but also many differences, including the ability to be run on platforms other than Windows.

Chapter 8: Everyday Uses for SAS Output Delivery System (ODS)

This chapter shows how to prepare SAS program output suitable for Microsoft Office, Adobe Reader, or web browsers by just changing a few program statements.

Part Three: Data Visualization

This part demonstrates how to generate high-quality graphs using SAS ODS Graphics.

Chapter 9: Introduction to Graph Templates

This chapter offers a simple introduction to the facilities provided by Graph Templates and how and when to use them.

Chapter 10: Introduction to ODS Graphics Procedures

This chapter provides a simple introduction to the different ODS Graphics procedures and how to make your data come alive for colleagues and business users.

Chapter 11: Generating Graph Templates

This chapter explores the different SAS facilitie

Chapter 12: Converting SAS/GRAPH Plots to ODS Graphics

You may already have a suite of SAS/GRAPH programs that create your standard plots and charts. Could these graphs be generated using ODS Graphics, included in SAS Base, so that you would not have to license SAS/GRAPH next time? Of course, and this chapter explains how.

Chapter 13: Customizing Graph Templates

This chapter shows how to take simple Graph Templates and customize them for the projects you are pursuing.

Chapter 14: ODS GRAPHICS Statement

In the same way that ODS can be used to prepare output suitable for other applications, the ODS GRAPHICS statement can be used to create graphs in specific formats depending on your need. This chapter explains them all.

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 data.

Most of the solutions can be achieved using the SAS components you already license, eliminating the need to throw money at the problems.