Fundamentals of Programming in SAS. James Blum
of the topics listed above, additional details are often beyond the scope of this text. References are provided for those interested in further study.
Is This Book for You?
Are you trying to learn SAS for the first time? Are you hoping to eventually earn your Base SAS certification and become a SAS Certified Professional? Are you already comfortable with some SAS programming but are looking to hone your skills? If the answer to any of those questions is “yes,” then this is the book for you! This book takes a novel approach to learning SAS programming by helping you develop an understanding of the language and establish good programming practices. By following a single case study throughout the text and circling back to previous concepts, this book aids in the learning of new topics through explicit connections to previous material. Just as the best SAS programmers expand their capabilities by continually adding to their already impressive skill sets, as you read this text you will gain the skills and confidence to take on larger challenges with the power of SAS.
This book does not assume any prior knowledge of the SAS programming language. However, an understanding of how file paths function in your operating system is necessary to facilitate the storage and retrieval of data sets, raw data files, and other files such as documents and graphics.
What Should You Know About the Examples?
This book includes tutorials for you to follow to gain hands-on experience with SAS. The majority of the examples are based on a case study using real data. Some examples use subsets of the case study data or introduce smaller data sets to help illustrate a topic. Chapters 2 through 7 contain a wrap-up activity that uses the case study to tie together concepts from the current chapter, and every chapter references another case study contained in Chapter 8 for further practice. You need access to the software listed in the next section to complete the exercises.
For easy reference, the numbering on all output in Chapters 1 through 7 directly corresponds to the number of the program that generated it. However, not all programs generate output. In all chapters, the programs, output, tables, and figures are numbered sequentially within each section.
Software Used to Develop the Book’s Content
SAS 9.4TS1M3 and higher were used to develop the examples and exercises. To follow along with the examples simultaneously or to complete the exercises, you only need the Base SAS software except for the portions of Chapters 7 and 8 that use SAS/ACCESS to connect to Microsoft Excel workbooks and Microsoft Access databases.
Example Code and Data
You can access the example code and data for this book by linking to its author page at https://support.sas.com/authors.
SAS University Edition
Where Are the Exercise Solutions?
Readers: Exercise solutions to selected exercises are posted on the author page at https://support.sas.com/authors.
Classroom Instructors: To obtain the full solutions, contact [email protected].
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Learn more about these authors by visiting their author pages, where you can download free book excerpts, access example code and data, read the latest reviews, get updates, and more:
http://support.sas.com/blum http://support.sas.com/duggins
About These Authors
James Blum is a Professor of Statistics at the University of North Carolina Wilmington where he has developed and taught original courses in SAS programming for the university for nearly 20 years. These courses cover topics in Base SAS, SAS/SQL, SAS/STAT, and SAS macros. He also regularly teaches courses in regression, experimental design, categorical data analysis, and mathematical statistics; and he is a primary instructor in the Master of Data Science program at UNC Wilmington, which debuted in the fall of 2017. He has experience as a consultant on data analysis projects in clinical trials, finance, public policy and government, and marine science and ecology. He earned his MS in Applied Mathematics and PhD in Statistics from Oklahoma State University.
Jonathan Duggins is an award-winning Teaching Professor at North Carolina State University, where his teaching includes multiple undergraduate and graduate programming courses. His experience as a practicing biostatistician influences his classroom instruction, where he incorporates case studies, utilizes large data sets, and holds students accountable for the best practices used in industry. Jonathan is a member of the American Statistical Association and is active with the North Carolina chapter. He has been a SAS user since 1999 and has presented at both regional and national statistical and SAS user group conferences. Jonathan holds a BS and MS in mathematics from the University of North Carolina Wilmington and an MS and PhD in statistics from Virginia Tech.
Learn more about these authors by visiting their author pages, where you can download free book excerpts, access example code and data, read the latest reviews, get updates, and more:
https://support.sas.com/blum http://support.sas.com/duggins
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my family—my mother Jo Ann, my father Robert, and my sister Amy—for their unwavering support in all of my academic endeavors over the years. A big thank you to all of the students and colleagues I have interacted with who, through their desire to learn more, also pushed me to learn more and bring more ideas back into the classroom. Thanks to all of the people at SAS who helped make this book a reality, particularly those in SAS publishing, and to all of the instructors I had for SAS Training who helped me transition from a mediocre SAS user to an actual SAS programmer. And a very special thank you to my love, Lilit, whose patience and encouragement gave me the extra strength to finish this project.
– Jim
I want to thank the hardworking staff at SAS who helped make this book a reality—it has been a learning experience and I am already looking forward to working with you on the next project! While many friends and colleagues supported me during this process, I especially want to thank Dr. Ellen Breazel for providing invaluable feedback from the perspective of a fellow SAS instructor and to Jordan Lewis for helping ensure the needs of the novice SAS user remained a primary concern during my writing process. Thank you to my wonderful and supportive wife, Katherine, for keeping me from getting