BASUG - Next Meeting

WHAT: Quarterly Meeting of the Boston Area SAS Users Group
WHEN: Wednesday, July 23 - 8:30 AM to 11:30 AM
WHERE:
Private HealthCare Systems
1100 Winter Street, Waltham MA

AGENDA:
8:30 AM: Continental Breakfast
9:00 AM: PROC SUMMARY and PROC FORMAT: A Winning Combination
Alan Dickson, Independent Consultant

Many people overlook PROC SUMMARY, possibly because their data does not seem to conform well to the procedure's CLASS statement. However, a simple pre-processing DATA step can be use to classify observations based on ranges or values specified in a user-written format. This not only allows the user to group observations, but can give more control over the subsequent reporting structure. This paper demonstrates this technique, outlining what the user needs to do, what to expect as a result, and some situations to watch out for. It is suitable for anyone with a general familiarity with the DATA step who has at least tried out these procedures, since the syntax will be assumed.
Alan has been programming in SAS and other languages for over 15 years. He has been an invited speaker at many SUGI and NESUG conferences. Alan was chairman of the NorthEast SAS Users Group Conference in Boston in 1990.
10:00 AM: So You're Still Not Using PROC REPORT. Why Not?
Ray Pass, ASG, Inc.
Daphne Ewing, IBAH, Inc.

Everyone who can spell SAS knows how to use PROC PRINT. It's primary use may be as a development tool to help in debugging a long multi-step program, or as a simple report generator when all that is really needed is a quick look at the data, or even a basic low-level finished report. However, if a report generation/information delivery tool with powerful formatting, summarizing and analysis features is called for, then PROC REPORT is the solution. PROC REPORT can provide the standard PROC PRINT functionality, but in addition, can easily perform many of the tasks that you would otherwise have to use the SORT, MEANS, FREQ and TABULATE procedures to accomplish. PROC REPORT is part of the Base SAS product, can run in both an interactive screen-painting mode or a batch mode, and should be the basic tool of choice when there is a need to produce powerful and productive reports from SAS data sets. This paper will present the basics of PROC REPORT (non-interactive mode) through a series of progressively more sophisticated examples of code and output.
Ray Pass is a SAS consultant with ASG, Inc. and has been using the SAS System for too many years. He is the co-author, with Ron Cody, of Programming SAS by Example (1995) and has delivered many invited papers at national, regional and local SAS user groups. Ray's primary areas of expertise in the SAS System are report generation and data manipulation. In addition to teaching SAS courses, Ray has also been quite active in organizing and participating in SAS user group activities on various levels. Ray was one of the founders of both the New York Area SAS Users Group (NYASUG) and the NorthEast SAS Users Group (NESUG.) Ray co-chaired the first two NESUG annual conventions ('88, '89) and has been a Section Chair at many SAS User Group International (SUGI) annual conventions.
11:00 AM: Generating a Table of Contents for a Format Library
Craig Dickstein, ASG Inc.

A feature lacking in PROC FORMAT is the ability to produce a listing of just the members available and some metadata about them. The FMTLIB option will generate reams of output when all you may be after is a listing of the available formats to remind you of their presence, type, or spelling. A simple but elegant routine is presented to produce just this kind of listing. By extension, the technique presented here can be used in a variety of similar situations.
11:15 AM: Iterative Code Development: Two Testing Techniques
Craig Dickstein, ASG Inc.

In the iterative development method there needs to be frequent testing and data visualization. Once the routine is ready, the code should run without the laborious step of stripping out all the testing and data visualization modules. This paper addresses these issues via two independent techniques. First, a simple macro will be shown that aids in the quick visualization of data. Second, a simple but elegant use of macro variables is shown to increase programmer productivity when developing and executing code. These techniques are sure to help the reader conceptualize additional testing techniques.
Craig has been using the SAS System for 18 years in a variety of environments. Most recently he has plied his trade in a large national consultancy specializing in SAS solutions. His primary expertise is in data mining and information reporting.

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