Not everyone agrees on a definition of “big data” — but you’ll probably agree that the amount of data available today is a lot bigger than in the past, eh?!? … so let’s just call it “Bigger Data”! 🙂 And you might have noticed that some of your ol…
Tag: tips and tricks
Census block maps in SAS
I’ve heard many customers ask “Can SAS do/use/handle census block maps?” My answer was “of course!” … but I never really had any examples to show/prove that. Well, now I do! 🙂 First, you need to locate & download the shape files for the censu…
SAS analysis of the #1 most popular baby names
I’m sure that most of you have seen the really cool interactive Baby Name Voyager, right? If not, go have a look and try it out (be sure to plug in your name, and the names in your family, and so on). That’s a pretty cool application! … But it m…
An easy way to find variables in common to data sets
Over the holidays I was having a discussion with my cat, Ms. Trixie Lou. A question that often arises during the first programming class is the following: how do I find the variables that are in common to these two or three data sets? As it turns out, …
Learn how to use the CASE function in SAS Information Map Studio
There are some situations where you need to create a new data item based on different conditions. To do this, you need to use the CASE statement available in the Expression Editor window. Watch SAS Instructor, Lynn Matthews, give a step-by-step tuto…
Finding patterns in big data with SAS/GRAPH
When working with “big data” you usually have too many points to view in a plot, and end up subsetting or summarizing the data. But now, in SAS 9.3, you have an alternative! For example, the following scatter plot of 10,000+ points is just a visual “b…
Jedi SAS Tricks: FUNC(y) Formats
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 …
Jedi SAS Tricks – Roll Your Own Function
A SAS user (who lives in the the US) emailed me a question about SAS functions. He was read UTC (Coordinated Universal Time) datetime values from server logs, and to make future calculations and comparisons easier, he wanted to transform the value to …