WW05
Efficient SAS Programming Techniques
Sat, All Day
Ben Cochran
The Bedford Group
Email: bedfordgroup@nc.rr.com
Abstract:
Efficient programming is the cornerstone of getting good performance from SASâ Software. Efficiency, though, doesn’t come natural for most people—it must be learned. This workshop will introduce efficiency techniques that can dramatically improve your prog
ramming skills, including
· Basic Programming Techniques: Execute only necessary statements and eliminate unnecessary passes of the data by reading and writing only data that you need.
· Space Saving Techniques: Understand data set size and how to compres
s data sets, reduce observation length, and use DATA step views to save space.
· Time Saving Techniques: Create, use, and delete indexes for finding observations faster.
· Data Access Techniques: Use the import/export wizard and DDE to access external da
ta, and use PROC SQL’s Pass-Through facility of PROC SQL to access RDBMS data.
· Table Lookup Techniques: Use formats, arrays, and indexed data sets to speed table lookup operations.
SAS users who have a beginning to intermediate skill-level will benefi
Biography:
Ben Cochran was an instructor with SAS Institute for over 11 years. He is now an independent consultant and trainer who is also a SAS Institute Quality Partner. Ben is certified to teach over a dozen SAS Institute courses and is a SAS Certified Professiona
l, Version 8.