Applications of PROC COMPARE to Parallel Programming and Other Projects

Jay Iyengar

PROC COMPARE is a valuable BASE SAS procedure which is used heavily in the Pharma industry and other areas. By default, the capability of PROC COMPARE is to reconcile two data sets to determine if they have equivalent sets of records and sets of variables. In the clinical field and elsewhere, PROC COMPARE is often used to validate data sets in projects which involve parallel programming, where programmers independently perform the same tasks. In this paper, I will discuss the role PROC COMPARE plays in different SAS tasks, including DATA STEP merges, parallel programming, generation data sets, and more.

TARDIS: Tracking Alterations and Record Differences in SAS, a Macro to Add Color to Your Dataset Comparisons

Inka Leprince

Time Lords are an ancient race of time- and space-travelers from the planet Gallifrey. They have taken upon the vital role of safeguarding time-travel technology to protect and preserve order in the universe. The bureaucratic part of this responsibility requires that the High Council of Time Lords keeps a record of events and continually cross-references the current version of events against previous iterations of events. To describe the task of monitoring individuals visiting (or potentially invading) planet Earth—let alone the rest of the universe—as “challenging” would be putting it lightly.

The Tracking Alterations and Record Differences in SAS (TARDIS) macro was developed to ease the High Council's burden by dynamically coloring records to identify antiquated or expunged incidents from the preceding version of events when compared against the current version of events. Additionally, TARDIS applies text formatting to highlight new events that had previously not occurred.

After reading this paper, SAS users will acquire the knowledge to seamlessly integrate the TARDIS macro into existing listing programs, generate color-coded listings, and preserve order in the universe.