What’s New in SAS/IML 13.2

Enhancements in SAS/IML 12.3

SAS/IML 12.3, which was released as part of SAS 9.4 software, contains the following new functions and subroutines:

BAR call

creates a bar chart.

BLANKSTR function

returns a blank string of a specified length.

BOX call

creates a box plot.

COL function

returns a matrix $\bM $, which is the same size as the input matrix, such that $\bM [i,j]=i$.

CORR2COV function

scales a correlation matrix into a covariance matrix.

COV2CORR function

scales a covariance matrix into a correlation matrix.

EXPANDGRID function

returns a matrix that contains all combinations of elements from specified vectors.

HISTOGRAM call

creates a histogram.

ISEMPTY function

returns 1 if the argument is an empty matrix (zero rows and columns) and 0 otherwise.

MAGIC function

returns a magic square of a given size.

RANDFUN function

returns a matrix of random numbers from a specified distribution.

ROW function

returns a matrix $\bM $, which is the same size as the input matrix, such that $\bM [i,j]=j$.

SCATTER call

creates a scatter plot.

SERIES call

creates a series plot.

In addition, SAS/IML 12.3 introduced the following enhancements to existing functions:

  • The column index operator (:) supports lowercase or uppercase letters, enabling you to generate a sequence such as "a":"z", "C":"M", or "z":"x".

  • The QNTL function returns the minimum value of a sample as the zeroth percentile and the maximum value of a sample as the 100th percentile.

  • The REPEAT function supports a new syntax for expanding data by a frequency variable. For example, REPEAT({A B C D}, {3 0 2 1}) returns the vector {A A A C C D}.

  • The SYMSQR and SQRSYM functions support character matrices.

  • The BLOCK function supports empty matrices as arguments.