SAS Tips & Advanced

Practical tricks, patterns, and exam-adjacent knowledge

1 Focus areas

  • Time-saving coding patterns and macro snippets
  • Common pitfalls seen in certification questions
  • Advanced DATA step and PROC SQL techniques

3 Patterns to collect

  • Reusable imports: parameterized PROC IMPORT/EXPORT wrappers for CSV/Excel.
  • Merges that fail quietly: detecting duplicate keys and missing matches; use IN= flags and row counts.
  • Date/time gotchas: length/format pairs, timezone offsets, and interval calculations.
  • Macro safety: %superq, %bquote, and defensive checks around %sysfunc.
  • SQL vs DATA step trade-offs: when to prefer each for performance or clarity.
  • Validation hooks: small audit steps with PROC FREQ/MEANS to catch anomalies.

4 How to use this page

  • Treat it as a living notebook: append new snippets as you solve real tasks.
  • Map each tip to certification objectives to reinforce recall under exam conditions.
  • Keep examples minimal and runnable to speed review.

5 Topic directory

Drop new snippets under tips/ (e.g., 01-macro-safety.qmd, 02-dates.qmd). Prefix with numbers or dates to keep the listing ordered automatically.

6 Coming next

  • A curated set of macro utilities with parameters and test cases.
  • Side-by-side SQL and DATA step solutions for common transformations.
  • Checklists for log review and performance tuning.
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