Advanced SAS^® Programming and Efficiency Techniques

Duration: 3 days

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Description

This three-day course builds on concepts presented in SAS^® Programming: Data Manipulation Techniques. It focuses on reading data with direct access, combining data, sorting, performing table lookups, an introduction to the SAS^® Scalable Performance Data Server^® and maximizing the efficiency of SAS programs.

Objectives

After attending this course you will be able to:

• perform three-way merges
• combine summary data and detail data
• manage data structures
• manage data values (including formatting data and using multidimensional arrays)
• carry out random and systematic sampling of data
• use SAS indexes

Prerequisite Skills

This course is not appropriate for users new to SAS. Before attending this course, you should have at least nine months of SAS programming experience and should have completed the SAS Programming: Data Manipulation Techniques course.

Specifically you should be able to:

• understand file structure and write system commands to create and access files
• understand programming logic concepts (IF/THEN logic)
• understand the compilation and execution process of the DATA step
• use different kinds of input to create SAS data sets from external files
• use SAS software to access SAS data libraries
• create and use SAS date values
• read, concatenate, merge, match-merge and interleave SAS data sets
• use the data set options DROP=, KEEP= and RENAME=
• create multiple output data sets
• use array processing and DO loops to process data iteratively
• use SAS functions to perform data manipulation and transformations

SAS^® System Modules used

This course covers Version 9 of Base SAS^®.

Course Topics

Introduction

• Introduction to the Course Topics
• Measuring Efficiencies
• SAS Processing
• Controlling Memory and I/O Resources

Accessing Observations

• Introduction
• Creating Sample Data Sets
• Creating and Using an Index

Combining Data Horizontally

• Joining Data Sets by Value
• Combining Summary and Detail Data
• Using an Index to Combine Data
• Updating Data
• Combining Summary and Detail Data Using Two SET Statements (self-study)

Combining Data Vertically

• Appending Raw Data Files
• Appending SAS Data Sets

BY-Group Processing and Sorting

• Introduction
• Eliminating Duplicates
• Sorting Resources
• Choosing the Right Sort Routine(Self-study)
• Alternatives to Sorting

Using Lookup Tables to Match Data

• Using Arrays as Lookup Tables
• Using Hash Objects as Lookup Tables
• Using Formats as Lookup Tables
• Transposing Data to Create a Lookup Table

Controlling Data Storage Space

• Introduction
• Reducing the Length of Numeric Variables
• Compressing SAS Data Files
• Creating a DATA Step View

Utilizing Best Practices to Improve Efficiency

• Introduction
• Executing only the Necessary Statements
• Eliminating Un-necessary Passes Through the Data
• Reading and Writing only Essential Data
• Networking Efficiency Considerations (Self-study)

Introduction the SAS^® Scalable Performance Data Server^® (self-study)

Reserve your place on this Newtyne SAS Training Course