SAS Made Easy

It is not difficult to learn SAS,
The key is to master RETAIN and MERGE
RETAIN abandons the old friend only when he gets a new one,
First.VAR makes a great difference by it's "1".
MERGE likes to join hands to hands (of datasets),
It is "BY" to keep every thing in order.
SET does his job by "FIRST COME, FIRST SERVE",
It is also "BY" to make "interleaving" a reality.
If you love him, then "KEEP",
If you hate him, then "DROP".
"IN" tells us some one is coming,
"END" signals the last observation.
SAS was born in 1960,1,1
She counts her age by days.
INFORMATS gets in all all "clothes",
FORMAT represents her own wishes.
Using "INPUT", we get numbers;

3 Keys to Understand SAS System

Key 1: SAS program is made up of Statements

• statements are instructions;
• instructures require actions;
• actions follow "first come first serve"

Key 2: Data Step is a big loop

• Data step starts from the first observation;
• It examines each following observation like an military official counting head;
• It ends up with the last observation.

Key 3: Proc is a statistician

• Proc means: let's find the average!
• Proc freq: percent, percent!
• Proc logistic: any relation, causation?

Why SAS is so important to our life?

Doing Statistics is not easy.

It is science, because it tries to find the truth.
It is technology, because it involves skills.

Here comes SAS.

SAS is a bridge between statisticians and computer genius. It is programming of data; it is understanding of the data; it is the manipulating of the data. It helps minds to build patterns from data chios.

To know SAS is to use SAS; to use SAS is to understand data; and to understand data is to understand the world.


Important SAS Documents:
http://support.sas.com/techsup/sample/testbase.html