In the previous episode, we built our own custom SAS function – a masterful trick indeed. Gordon Keener, a developer here at SAS, responded exuberantly “You think that’s cool? – try THIS!” and proceeded to demonstrate prodigious powers with the SAS by …
SAS Enterprise Guide: Import the Excel Spreadsheet – Easy Peasy
One SAS Enterprise Guide feature I particularly like is the ability to import Microsoft Excel data quickly and easily. SAS offers many ways to work with Excel spreadsheets but often I find I just want to extract data from Excel and get on with my job. Use a “Known Good” First Time If you are trying this process for the first time, use a “known good” or simple spreadsheet so if any issues arise you can at least eliminate the data as the cause. When this process fails, I generally find that the spreadsheet has something odd going on, such as pasted text, etc. SAS Enterprise Guide has some sample spreadsheets available, which I use in this example. The SupplyInfo.xls spreadsheet is available in the SAS Enterprise Guide Sample data sub-directory. It has two sheets: Suppliers and Shippers. Let’s import the Suppliers spreadsheet for some quick analysis. Here is the location of my sample files. [Read Create Your Own Sample Data for SAS BI for ideas about where other sample data lives.] Import Your Excel Spreadsheet I’m using SAS Enterprise Guide 5.1; as far as I can tell the wizard has not changed much from earlier releases so you should be able […]
#1 SAS programming tip for 2012
What tiny looking operator packs a mighty punch with large datasets? Your queries are big. Your reports span multiple columns. To top it all you have to summarize data in multiple ways. Are you tempted to throw in the towel? Do you feel like saying a…
Get the syntax right
With your fingers poised over the keyboard and staring lovingly into the program editor, your mind goes blank. Panic sets in. Oh no. What’s the name of the statement I need ? Oh right. The ODS Select statement. Maybe. Lots and lots of SAS users wr…
Will 2015 be the Beginning of the End for SAS and SPSS?
Learning to use a data analysis tool well takes significant effort, so people tend to continue using the tool they learned in college for much of their careers. As a result, the software used by professors and their students is … Continue reading →
Using Windows PowerShell to view your SAS data dictionary
In a previous post I showed how you can use Windows PowerShell (with the SAS Local Data Provider) to create a SAS data set viewer. This approach doesn’t require that you have SAS installed, and allows you to read or export the records within a SAS data set file. In […]