SAS Tech Report: Tips Extra

#DataViz with SAS

3 roads that lead to great SAS data visualizations

Our featured Tips Extra visualization began with a blog post from Robert Allison, who used SAS/GRAPH to improve on a refugee-related visualization. Then SAS Support Communities star @tc published his version using ODS graphics and issued this challenge: "How about a SAS Visual Analytics version?" @Renato_SAS couldn't resist the call, and built yet another version in SAS Visual Analytics 8.1. Who wore it best? You decide.

Create and interpret a weighted histogram

If you perform a weighted statistical analysis, it can be useful to produce a statistical graph that also incorporates the weights. And guess what? PROC SGPLOT's histogram feature supports a WEIGHT option. Here's how it works.

Draw and rotate an impossible triangle with PROC SGPLOT

Ready to dust off your geometry skills? Here's an excerpt from this article: "This step rotates the shape 0 radians, π / 8 radians, and so on until it reaches a complete rotation of 2π radians." Um, I might need to ask my 7th grader for help on this one.

#SASTips for Coders

The %CHARLIST macro: build a list of your data values

SAS instructor Jim Simon shares his elegant SAS macro for building a list of values from any variable in a data set. It's super handy for display in titles and footnotes, or as selection criteria in SELECT or WHERE clauses. Caution: this article might exceed your recommended daily allowance of ampersands.

Reading and writing GZIP files from SAS

With SAS 9.4 Maintenance 5 now available, another piece of the FILENAME ZIP puzzle falls into place. This article shows how you can use SAS to read and write your .GZ compressed files directly, no external tools necessary.

Use data to drive your next simulation

In this article, Rick Wicklin shows how to use the characteristics of your data to create a control file, which you can then use to simulate data that has similar features. (Or should I say "data that have similar features"? Let's not go there, okay?)

Always save your code for compiled SAS macros

"It is very important to remember that there is no way to get back the code from a stored compiled macro." Once burned, twice learned -- am I right?

Tips from SAS Communities

A SAS Studio custom task for a data profiling chart

In another example of "Chris copies off his friends," this custom task reuses a SAS program from Rick Wicklin and SAS Studio custom task steps from Olivia Wright. Combined, you get a useful task that's easy to add to your SAS Studio arsenal. As with all of the "Custom Task Tuesday" series, the article is on SAS Support Communities, and code is on GitHub.

A tale of two tables (and the best way to join them)

It was the best of joins, it was the worst of joins (with apologies to Charles Dickens...). Communities member (and SAS performance guru) ChrisNZ presents his study of table joins using sort and merge, hash object, and indexes. Spoiler about which method is best: it depends.

SAS^® Tech Report

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