For members of SAS-L in the Tri-State area who are also members of the New York Area SAS Users Group (NYASUG):

The next meeting of the New York Area SAS Users Group will be on Wednesday, June 12th at the Merrill Lynch building in the World Financial Center. This will be a half day meeting, with 3 scheduled presentations.

The theme of this meeting will be File and Dataset Manipulations. This meeting will have presentations from frequent SAS-L contributor Mike Davis and SAS-L MVP Ian Whitlock.

The following are abstracts of the 3 scheduled presentations:

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Is It Data Or Is Code ? By Ian Whitlock

Some DATA _NULL_ reports use massive numbers of PUT statements to write different versions of a basic report. In such cases one can view the report as a text input file where one wants to conditionally print certain lines after making substitutions for variable references and conditionally inserting lines which are not in the input text file. This approach drastically transforms how one thinks about some DATA _NULL_ reports.

A macro COPYREPL, which generates the DATA step code, is used to automate the replacement of variable references with their values. This talk will consist of the presentation of several examples, the logic of how to use the macro in complex situations, and the macro.

Ian has a PhD in mathematics, and was a college professor, before being retreaded to a FORTRAN programmer in 1978 by NYU. He found SAS in 1981 while working at Reader's Digest. Becoming a fanatic he laid his job on the line several times for pushing SAS. In 1986, he joined a group of SAS fanatics at ORI, Inc in Washington, DC. He subsequently moved to Westat Inc., a survey research outfit, in 1989 where he is presently working for a SAS fanatic. In addition to his programming responsibil- ities, he teaches SAS Basics and Macros. Ian is an active member of DCSUG and is a frequent contributor to SAS-L.

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Reading External Files By Michael Davis And Clint Rickards

In the real world, most data is not stored in SAS datasets. Typical data repositories used by business and academia include mainframe files, client/server-relational database management systems, and simple text files on desktop computers. While we want to use SAS to examine, analyze, display and graph this data, SAS works best with data stored in SAS datasets, not with data stored in their native forms.

Fortunately, SAS has very powerful tools for reading a wide variety of external files, from rudimentary to complex. This paper is an expanded and updated version of similar papers presented by the lead author at previous SAS conferences and will introduce DATA step techniques for reading standard external files not stored in database management systems or proprietary file structures.

We will begin with a brief overview of what to do before you write any code, followed by an examination of the SAS statements used to read an external file. Starting with very simple files, we will study programs that utilize more complicated features, including reading into arrays, multiple format files, variable length files and multiple record files.

Michael Davis is currently Vice President of Bassett Consulting Services, Inc. He has worked for Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Connecticut and the Connecticut Hospital Association. A SAS user for over 11 years, Michael specializes in creating SAS/AF FRAME applications. He is a recent past chairman of the Hartford Area SAS User Group and is co-chair of the Application Development Section for SUGI 22. Michael holds a Masters in Health Administration from Duke University and a BS in Business from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

Clint Rickards is a Business System Development Specialist with Aetna Retirement Services. A SAS user for 11 years, his speciality has been extracting, manipulating and reporting on data from a wide variety of sources.

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Stop Merging And Start Combining By Robert Nichol

There are many different ways to combine data within the SAS System. Probably the most widely used method is the MERGE statement. While MERGE is very powerful, it is generally misunderstood and overused by the average SAS programmer. This paper illustrates some of the common data combination methods and provides guidelines for choosing the most effective techniques. The data combination routines covered by this paper are formats, the MERGE statement, the UPDATE statement, the SET statement, PROC SQL, PROC APPEND and PROC DATASETS.

Robert Nichol functions as an internal SAS consultant for US Quality Algorithms. His responsibilities range from training and problem resolution to capacity planning and systems development. As both an employee and a consultant, his information systems background encom- passes a variety of industries including Health Care, Utilities, Manufacturing and Petrochemicals. His 16 years of experience with the SAS System has enabled him to effectively development fundamental reporting as well as complex multi-platform systems running under MVS, DOS, OS/2 and Unix.

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Do You Have A Coding Problem ?

If you have a question or a problem with a program that you are working on, bring it with you and tap the collective expertise of the NYASUG membership during the session break.

Bring a printout of your program, the SASLOG, or preferably, put it on an overhead transparency.

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The agenda for the June 12th meeting is:

08:30 - 09:00 Continental Breakfast

09:00 - 10:00 Is It Code Or Data ?

10:00 - 10:30 Morning Break & Random Access

10:30 - 11:30 Reading External Files

11:30 - 12:30 Stop Merging And Start Combining

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Location: World Financial Center Merrill Lynch Tower (WFC 4/North) 3rd Floor Meeting Room New York, NY

The World Financial Center is located between Vesey and Liberty streets, behind the World Trade Center, in Battery Park City.

Subway: IRT (#1) or BMT ('R', 'N') to Cortlandt St/ World Trade Center stop. IND ('A', 'C', 'E') to Chambers St/World Trade Center stop.

Bus: M9, M10 or M22 to Battery Park City.

Car: Take West Street (West Side Highway) and turn west onto Vesey or Liberty streets across from the World Trade Center. Parking is available at the 1 and 4 World Financial Center buildings.

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For further information about this meeting, or the New York Area SAS Users Group, please contact the group's liaison:

Jean LaFrance FISA 111 8th Avenue - 13th Floor New York, NY 10011 (212) 206-3116