| Understanding the Interactive Matrix Language |
Defining a Matrix
The fundamental data object on which all Interactive Matrix Language
commands operate is a two-dimensional (row
column) numeric or character matrix.
By their very nature, matrices are useful for
representing data and efficient for working with data.
Matrices have the following properties:
- Matrices can be either numeric or character. Elements of a numeric matrix are stored in double precision. Elements of a character matrix are character strings of equal length. The length can range from 1 to 32676 characters.
- Matrices are referred to by valid SAS names. Names can be from 1 to 32 characters long, beginning with a letter or underscore, and continuing with letters, numbers, and underscores.
- Matrices have dimension defined by the number of rows and columns.
- Matrices can contain elements that have missing values (see the section "Missing Values").
The dimension of a matrix is defined by
the number of rows and columns it has.
An 
matrix has 
elements
arranged in 
rows and 
columns.
The following nomenclature is standard in this user's guide:
-
matrices are called row vectors.
-
matrices are called column vectors.
-
matrices are called scalars.
Copyright © 2009 by SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, USA. All rights reserved.