10 interesting discoveries from SAS 9.3

shiyiming

From Dapangmao's blog on sas-analysis

<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pgLI-Pt79eg/TjTDOWmeMaI/AAAAAAAAAts/EztcVCEwtlI/s1600/Slide1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-pgLI-Pt79eg/TjTDOWmeMaI/AAAAAAAAAts/EztcVCEwtlI/s400/Slide1.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><b>1. SAS 9.2 and SAS 9.3 coexist</b><br />
I thought that a new installation of SAS 9.3 would automatically uninstall the old SAS 9.22 on my laptop. Amazingly, the two editions live together peacefully. The directory for SAS 9 .3 is SASHOME while SAS 9.22’s is SAS. I can even run them simultaneously, and they don't bother to interfere each other. Anyway, Enterprise Guide 4.3 replaced the old 4.2 edition after this upgrade.   <br />
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<b>2. Zero-configuration for Enterprise Miner 7.1</b><br />
In SAS 9.2 era, installation of Enterprise Miner was a nightmare for me. I can’t image somebody other than a trained technician can install it properly. In SAS 9.3, Enterprise Miner 7.1 workstation becomes a part of the default installation (of course you should have the license). There seems no hassle to make it work well.<br />
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<b>3. Default HTML output is surprisingly speedy</b><br />
At the beginning, I seriously doubted on this change, since calling a browser to open HTML pages was intolerably slow in the SAS 9.2 windowing environment. However, HTML output in SAS 9.3 is impressively fast, and I didn’t feel any significant difference between the HTML and the listing. However, I suggest keeping the default HTMLBlue as the HTML style. I tried other styles and they are not that fast as HTMLBlue -- possibly it has been optimized for this feature.<br />
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<b>4. Much faster installation</b><br />
I used to spend an entire afternoon to install SAS 9.22 on my ancient laptop. The medium for SAS 9.22 was 4 DVD discs and I was so exhausted to change the discs from time to time. For SAS 9.3 I used only one hour with 3 discs. It is going to be a big relief for those SAS administrators or IT support.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XaHueklziJU/TjTDURaT6gI/AAAAAAAAAt0/RCooUJZgiyk/s1600/Slide4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-XaHueklziJU/TjTDURaT6gI/AAAAAAAAAt0/RCooUJZgiyk/s400/Slide4.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><b>5. New plotting statements come with no learning curve</b><br />
I can draw bubble plot or water plot simply according to the SG procedures’ syntax. <a href="http://support.sas.com/publishing/authors/matange.html">Sanjay Matange</a> told that SAS 9.3 can also do many other kinds of plots, such as heat map, attribute map, clustered graph, etc, which I will certainly explore. And I pretty expect to see <a href="http://support.sas.com/publishing/bbu/new_titles2.html#matange">his new book </a>about ODS Graphics in SAS 9.3 later this year.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MJXol7ilIhU/TjTDb_IXy-I/AAAAAAAAAt8/dHhvFgXhLKE/s1600/Slide3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MJXol7ilIhU/TjTDb_IXy-I/AAAAAAAAAt8/dHhvFgXhLKE/s400/Slide3.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><b>6. One click to Microsoft Office</b><br />
Another reason I keep HTML as output destiny is that it has really cool interface to send the pieces toward Microsoft Office. For example, I can right click on an output table by PROC PRINT to save it as an Excel sheet. Or I can right click on a graph toward OneNote. Previously in SAS 9.22 I have to write a few lines of codes to do this job.<br />
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<b>7. The first question: ODS Graphics on or off</b><br />
The first time I ran SAS 9.3, a window popped up and asked if I wanted to switch off ODS Graphics.  Believe it or not, every statistical procedure could generate dazzling high-quality ODS graphs.  However, the trade-off is that it costs more computer resources. A regression by PROC REG from weight to height on SASHELP.CLASS takes 44 seconds. Thus I opt for off.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-X8zLZaOUwFk/TjVbdZhnekI/AAAAAAAAAuY/ED9f801FHoI/s1600/Capture7.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="175" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-X8zLZaOUwFk/TjVbdZhnekI/AAAAAAAAAuY/ED9f801FHoI/s320/Capture7.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><b>8. Import spreadsheet from Excel 2007/2010 officially </b><br />
In many years, to transform an xlsx spreadsheet to a CSV or xls format and import is a routine work for SAS users. In SAS 9.22, a hidden trick is to use <a href="http://sas-and-r.blogspot.com/2011/05/example-837-read-sheets-from-excel-file.html">PROC IMPORT</a> to input Excel 2007/2010 formats. Now we can see that it has an option in the import menu. Finally SAS 9.3 shows friendship to Excel 2007/2010.  <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YM1vjmjNyTU/TjTEtGkJzrI/AAAAAAAAAuU/QKmjKPKvbBI/s1600/Capture8.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="243" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YM1vjmjNyTU/TjTEtGkJzrI/AAAAAAAAAuU/QKmjKPKvbBI/s400/Capture8.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><b>9. New tool in the radar: ODS Graphics designer</b><br />
This interface would allow users to create ODS graphs by point-and-click. It can also be invoked by the %sgdesign() command. With this nice facility, I am able to find and modify the underlying Graph Template Language (GTL) codes from ODS Graphics.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tC5oek3dDzw/TjTDnpQALUI/AAAAAAAAAuM/EbKAbKLoJIA/s1600/Slide5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-tC5oek3dDzw/TjTDnpQALUI/AAAAAAAAAuM/EbKAbKLoJIA/s400/Slide5.JPG" width="400" /></a></div><b>10. Help documents has a multiple-tab head</b><br />
Everything in SAS 9.3 has been HTMLized. I like the new multiple-tab head for each SAS procedure in the documents, which should be more helpful in locating desired information.<br />
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In conclusion, SAS 9.3 is the real athlete for production purpose, while SAS 9.22 looks like an experimental warm-up release.<div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/3256159328630041416-8355025419332301794?l=www.sasanalysis.com' alt='' /></div><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/SasAnalysis/~4/hab3eLSVG8E" height="1" width="1"/>