SAS BASE: SAS Programming Fundamentals

In SAS programming, SAS Data step, SAS Procedure, SAS data sets variables, Conditional Processing, Data Transformations, Combining Datasets and Output and Reporting. These fundamental concepts form the basis of SAS programming, enabling data manipulation, analysis, and presentation of results.

What is SAS? 

SAS (Statistical Analysis System) is a software developed by SAS Institute. It provides a comprehensive set of tools for data management, advanced analytics, business intelligence, and predictive modeling. SAS is widely used in various industries and disciplines, including finance, healthcare, marketing, and government agencies, for making the decisions and solving complex problems.

SAS software used by millions of people all over the world. more than 100 countries at over the 44000 sites.

In 9070s, when it started out as a software package for statistical analysis and In 1980s, SAS has already branched out into the graphics, online data entry and compilers for C programming language.

In 1990s, the SAS family tree grew to include tools for visualization data, administering data warehouse and building interfaces to the world wide web. In the new century, SAS has continued to grow for cleansing messy data, discovering and developing drugs.

SAS Interface?

Some key components of the SAS interface for statistics are below;

• Editor: It is used to type the program, edit program and submit program etc.

• Log: Log window contains note about the SAS program, information about the code errors and warnings etc.

• Result: This window contains table format output in outline form of output window. 

• Output: When program generate any printable results, then they will apears in the output window. 

• Explorer: It gives the access of SAS files and libraries. 

What are the fundamentals?

In SAS base programming, there are few important fundamentals are below;

SAS Data Step: 

In SAS programming, data step is commonly used for data manipulation, which includes read data, modify data and transform data. Also, it is used to create new variables(row data), recode existing variables, merging datasets, data sorting, extract subsets from the dataset and perform other data manipulation tasks. 

 

SAS Procedure Step: 

SAS procedure allows to perform various functionalities or operations on the dataset, statistical methods or processes, summary statistics, reporting, graphing and more.

 

SAS data sets and variables:

SAS datasets can be created from row data files or from existing SAS datasets. In the SAS datasets, the variables is also called columns and the observations is also called rows. SAS datasets also contains variable names, variable types and there formats. 

 

Conditional Processing: 

SAS provides the conditional analyses on the dataset like WHERE, IF-THEN-ELSE, ELSE-IF statements. Also, SAS allows to perform conditional analyses on the datasets by using looping structure like Do loop, Do UNTIL and DO WHILE. 

 

Data Transformations: 

SAS base provides a wide range of functions and procedures for data transformations. These includes data cleaning, recoding variables, creating new variables, aggregating data, computing summary statistics and applying mathematical or statistical functions to data.

 

Merging Datasets: 

In SAS base, there are few ways to merge two or more data sets based on the common variable.  

Data Step/SQL Joins/Proc SQL: 

• Inner Merge/Inner Join: Inner merge combine only matching observations from the both datasets based on the common variable.    
• Left Outer Merge/Left Join: It combine all the observations from the left side dataset and the matching observations from the right side dataset based on the common variables.  
• Right Outer Merge/Right Join: It combine all the observations from the right side dataset and the matching observations from the left side dataset based on the common variables.

Output and Reporting:

SAS Base enables users to generate reports and output based on their analyses. Users can create customized reports with tables, listings, and graphs using PROCs, the Output Delivery System (ODS), and other reporting features. SAS Base also supports the creation of PDF, HTML, Excel, and other file formats for reporting and sharing results.