SAS Programming III: Advanced Techniques and Efficiencies

Classroom duration: 3.0 days Live Web duration: 6 half-day sessions Please note the System Requirements below. CEUs: 1.8
(This course is not currently scheduled.)

ScheduleThis course has been replaced. Please see the schedule for the new SAS Programming 3: Advanced Techniques and Efficiencies course.

This course is for SAS programmers who prepare data for analysis. The comparisons of manipulation techniques and resource cost benefits are designed to help programmers choose the most appropriate technique for their data situation.

This course can help prepare you for the following certification exam(s): SAS Advanced Programming Exam for SAS 9.

Learn how to compare various SAS programming techniques that enable you to

control memory, I/O, and CPU resources
create and use indexes
combine data horizontally and vertically
use hash objects, arrays, and formats as lookup tables
compress SAS data sets.

Who should attend

Experienced SAS programmers

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Prerequisites

This course is not appropriate for beginning SAS software users. Before attending this course, you should have at least nine months of SAS programming experience and should have completed the SAS Programming II: Manipulating Data with the DATA Step course. Specifically, you should be able to do the following:

understand your operating system file structures and perform basic operating system tasks
understand programming logic concepts
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 DROP=, KEEP=, and RENAME= data set options
create multiple output data sets
use array processing and DO loops to process data iteratively
use SAS functions to perform data manipulation and transformations.

Course Contents

Introduction

measuring efficiencies
SAS processing
controlling memory and I/O resources

Accessing Observations

creating a sample data set
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 SAS data sets
appending raw data files

BY-Group Processing and Sorting

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

reducing the length of numeric variables
compressing data files
creating a DATA step view

Utilizing Best Practices to Improve Efficiency

executing only necessary statements
eliminating unnecessary passes through the data
reading and writing only essential data
networking efficiency considerations (self-study)

Using the Scalable Performance Data Engine (Self-Study)

creating SPD engine tables
using the SPD engine efficiently
SPD Engine LIBNAME statement options list

Additional Topics (Self-Study)

modifying SAS data sets in place
creating generation data sets
creating integrity constraints
creating and using audit trails
working with Perl regular expressions

Software

This course addresses Base SAS. This course is appropriate for students who are using SAS 8 or SAS 9 software.

Course Materials

Classroom: Students attend classroom courses in one of our public training centers. You receive a hardcopy of the course notes and, in some courses, can choose to take home a copy of the course data.

Live Web: Students attend Live Web classes using a Web browser and a telephone and interact with their instructor and fellow classmates in real time. Each student receives an e-mail with instructions on how to join the class three business days before the class begins. The instructions e-mail includes a link to download the course materials. Students need to download and print the course materials prior to class.

System Requirements

For Live Web, you must

review and follow the general system requirements.
complete the course exercises through our virtual lab. The virtual lab allows you to access the software used in class over the Internet, so that you do not need this software on your local machine.
run this test to connect to a virtual lab session. If firewall problems prevent you from connecting to the virtual lab, then you will need the following software installed and configured in your environment to participate in the course exercises:
- Base SAS 9 or 8.2 under a Windows operating system.
  Important: If you are using Enterprise Guide rather than writing SAS programs in the Enhanced Editor, this class is not an appropriate offering.

Share Your Thoughts

Not sure if this course suits your needs or which delivery method is right for you? Give us a call at 800-333-7660 or send us e-mail. If you have suggestions for this course or would like for it to be offered at another training facility, let us know by adding to our Interest List.

Available for on-site training or can be scheduled at any SAS training facility

This page was created using SAS software.

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