This course is for users who want to learn advanced programming. The high-paced course consists of the courses SAS Programming 3: Advanced Techniques and Efficiencies, SAS SQL 1: Essentials and SAS Macro Language 1: Essentials. This high-paced course is not recommended for those who have not programmed before.

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
• process SAS data using Structured Query Language (SQL)
• use the SAS macro facility

Who should attend

Experienced SAS programmers who have a sound understanding of DATA step processing and who want to write SAS programs that are efficient, reusable and dynamic.

Formats available	Standard Duration (duration can vary, see event schedule for details)
Classroom:	5.0 days

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 2: Data Manipulation Techniques course. Basic knowledge of SQL is recommended.

Compare various SAS programming techniques that enable you to:

• benchmark computer resource usage
• control memory, I/O, and CPU resources
• create and use indexes
• combine data horizontally
• use hash and hiter DATA step component objects and arrays as lookup tables
• compress SAS data sets
• sample your SAS data sets
• create and use SAS data views
• safely reduce the length of numeric variables
• create user-defined functions and informats

Process SAS data using Structured Query Language (SQL) to:

• query and subset data
• summarize and present data
• combine tables, including complex joins and merges
• create and modify table views and indexes
• replace multiple DATA and PROC steps with one SQL query
  Note: The above mentioned topics are for self-study using the eLearning module SAS SQL 1: Essentials which is offered as part of this training.
  
  Covered in the classroom training are:
  
• use SQL to query the application data dictionary
• use SQL to create and populate macro variables

Use the SAS macro facility to:

• perform text substitution in SAS code
• automate and customize the production of SAS code
• conditionally or iteratively construct SAS code
• use macro variables and macro functions