This course is for users who want to learn how to write SAS programs. It is the entry point to learning SAS programming and is a prerequisite to many other SAS courses. If you do not plan to write SAS programs and you prefer a point-and-click interface, you should attend the SAS Enterprise Guide 1: Querying and Reporting course.

This course can help prepare you for the following certification exam(s): SAS Base Programming for SAS 9, SAS Certified Clinical Trials Programmer Using SAS 9.

Learn how to

• navigate the SAS Studio programming environment
• navigate the SAS Enterprise Guide programming environment
• navigate the SAS windowing environment
• read various types of data into SAS data sets
• create SAS variables and subset data
• combine SAS data sets
• create and enhance listing and summary reports.

Who should attend
Anyone starting to write SAS programs

Formats available	Standard duration
Classroom:	3.0 days
Live Web Classroom:	6 half-day sessions	System Requirements
e-Learning:	24 hours/1-yr license	System Requirements

Before attending this course, you should have experience using computer software. Specifically, you should be able to

• understand file structures and system commands on your operating systems
• access data files on your operating systems.

No prior SAS experience is needed. If you do not feel comfortable with the prerequisites or are new to programming and think that the pace of this course might be too demanding, you can take the SAS Programming Introduction: Basic Concepts course before attending this course. SAS Programming Introduction: Basic Concepts is designed to introduce you to computer programming and presents a portion of the SAS Programming 1: Essentials material at a slower pace.

This course addresses Base SAS software.This course also addresses SAS/ACCESS Interface to PC Files. This course is appropriate for students who are using SAS 9 software.

• overview of SAS Foundation
• course logistics
• course data files

• introduction to SAS programs
• submitting a SAS program
• SAS program syntax

• examining SAS data sets
• accessing SAS libraries

• subsetting report data
• sorting and grouping report data
• enhancing reports

• using SAS formats
• creating user-defined formats

• reading a SAS data set
• customizing a SAS data set

• reading spreadsheet data
• reading database data

• introduction to reading raw data files
• reading standard delimited data
• reading nonstandard delimited data
• handling missing data

• using SAS functions
• conditional processing

• concatenating data sets
• merging data sets one-to-one
• merging data sets one-to-many
• merging data sets with nonmatches

• using the FREQ procedure
• using the MEANS and UNIVARIATE procedures
• using the Output Delivery System

• SAS resources
• next steps