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Are you looking for a specific CAS action to use in your project? Maybe you need to create a linear or logistic regression and can’t seem to find the CAS action? In this post in the Getting Started with Python Integration to SAS® Viya® series, we are going to look at exploring and loading CAS action sets.

In this example, I have already made my connection to CAS using SAS Viya for Learners, and my connection object is named conn. Visit Part 1 of the series to learn more about making a connection to CAS.

Exploring CAS Action Sets

To explore CAS action sets you can use the actionSetInfo CAS action. This should look familiar from Part 2 – Working with CAS Actions and CASResults Objects.

conn.actionsetinfo()['setinfo']

Your results might differ depending on your SAS Viya installation.

The results show the default CAS action sets loaded with SAS Viya. However, many more are available. To see all available CAS action sets use the parameter all=True. The results from running the command with the all=True parameter includes both loaded and available action sets.

conn.actionsetinfo(all=True)['setinfo']

Your results might differ depending on your SAS Viya installation.

As a result of the all=True parameter, we can see over a hundred available CAS action sets. The next question is, how do I load an action set?

Loading a CAS Action Set

I think of loading an action set like importing a package in Python. To load an action set you need to complete two tasks:

Find the action set
Load the action set

Find the action set

First, let’s find the action set. Let’s assume we need to complete a logistic regression but are unsure of where the necessary CAS action is located. Instead of of manually scrolling through the CASResults object from the actionSetInfo CAS action, we can instead search the SASDataFrame (summarized data from CAS) for keywords.

First, I’ll set the SASDataFrame from the CASResults object equal to the variable df by calling the setinfo key.

df = conn.actionsetinfo(all=True)['setinfo']

Next, I’ll use the loc method on the SASDataFrame to search for any action set that contains the string regression. There are a variety of ways to do this; I’ll use the string contains method. I’ll make the search case insensitive by using case=False.

df.loc[df['actionset'].str.contains('regression', case=False), :]

Great! In the results I see a regression CAS action set. That looks exactly like what I need. Next, it’s time to load the action set.

Load the action set

To load the action use the loadActionSet action with the actionSet=’regression‘ parameter.

conn.loadActionSet(actionSet='regression')

That’s it! You have now loaded a CAS action set! Finally, let’s explore the actions inside the regression CAS action set.

Exploring CAS Actions in a CAS Action Set

Once a CAS action set is loaded, you can explore the available CAS actions by using the help action with the parameter actionSet=’regression‘.

conn.help(actionSet='regression')

The results display a list of all the CAS actions in the regression action set. I see the logistic CAS action that I need!

Summary

In conclusion, exploring and loading CAS action sets is important when working on your projects in SAS Viya. A couple of key points to remember:

The actionSetInfo CAS action returns all loaded CAS action sets.
The actionSetInfo parameter all=True returns all available CAS action sets.
The loadActionSet CAS action loads a CAS action set.