Exam Content Guide

SAS 9.4 Base Programming – Performance Based Exam

Access and Create Data Structures: 20-25%

Create temporary and permanent SAS data sets.

• Use a DATA step to create a SAS data set from an existing SAS data set.

Investigate SAS data libraries using base SAS utility procedures.

• Use a LIBNAME statement to assign a library reference name to a SAS library.

• Investigate a library programmatically using the CONTENTS procedure.

Access data.

• Access SAS data sets with the SET statement.

• Use PROC IMPORT to access non-SAS data sources.
o Read delimited and Microsoft Excel (.xlsx) files with PROC IMPORT.
o Use PROC IMPORT statement options (OUT=, DBMS=, REPLACE)
o Use the GUESSINGROWS statement.
o Use the DELIMITER statement.
• Use the SAS/ACCESS XLSX engine to read a Microsoft Excel workbook.xlsx file.

Combine SAS data sets.

• Concatenate data sets.

• Merge data sets one-to-one.
• Merge data sets one-to-many.

Create and manipulate SAS date values.

• Explain how SAS stores date and time values.

• Use SAS informats to read common date and time expressions.
• Use SAS date and time formats to specify how the values are displayed.

Control which observations and variables in a SAS data set are processed and
output.

• Use the WHERE and IF statements in the DATA step to select observations to be
processed.
• Subset variables to be output by using the DROP and KEEP statements.
• Use the DROP= and KEEP= data set options to specify columns to be processed and/or
output.

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Manage Data: 35-40%

Sort observations in a SAS data set.

• Use the SORT Procedure to re-order observations in place or output to a new dataset
with the OUT= option.
• Remove duplicate observations with the SORT Procedure.

Conditionally execute SAS statements.

• Use IF-THEN/ELSE statements to process data conditionally.

• Use DO and END statements to execute multiple statements conditionally.

Use assignment statements in the DATA step.

• Create new variables and assign a value.

• Assign a new value to an existing variable.
• Assign the value of an expression to a variable.
• Assign a constant date value to a variable.

Modify variable attributes using options and statements in the DATA step.

• Change the names of variables by using the RENAME= data set option.
• Use LABEL and FORMAT statements to modify attributes in a DATA step.
• Define the length of a variable using the LENGTH statement.

Accumulate sub-totals and totals using DATA step statements.

• Use the BY statement to aggregate by subgroups.

• Use first. and last. processing to identify where groups begin and end.
• Use the RETAIN and SUM statements.

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Use SAS functions to manipulate character data, numeric data, and SAS date
values.

• Use SAS functions such as SCAN, SUBSTR, TRIM, COMPRESS, UPCASE, and LOWCASE
to perform tasks such as the tasks shown below.
o Replace the contents of a character value.
o Remove unwanted characters from strings.
o Search a character value and extract a portion of the value.
o Convert a character value to upper or lowercase.
• Use SAS numeric functions such as SUM, MEAN, RAND, SMALLEST, LARGEST, ROUND,
and INT.
• Create SAS date values by using the functions MDY, TODAY, DATE, and TIME.
• Extract the month, year, and interval from a SAS date value by using the functions
YEAR, QTR, MONTH, and DAY.
• Perform calculations with date and datetime values and time intervals by using the
functions INTCK, INTNX, and YRDIF.
• Use variable lists to efficiently reference multiple variables (OF operator, :,-,--).

Use SAS functions to convert character data to numeric and vice versa.

• Explain the automatic conversion that SAS uses to convert values between data types.
• Use the INPUT function to explicitly convert character data values to numeric values.
• Use the PUT function to explicitly convert numeric data values to character values.

Process data using DO LOOPS.

• Explain how iterative DO loops function.

• Use DO loops to eliminate redundant code and to perform repetitive calculations.
• Use conditional DO loops.
• Use nested DO loops.

Restructure SAS data sets with PROC TRANSPOSE.

• Select variables to transpose with the VAR statement.

• Rename transposed variables with the ID statement.
• Process data within groups using the BY statement.
• Use PROC TRANSPOSE options (OUT=, PREFIX= and NAME=).

Use macro variables to simplify program maintenance.

• Create macro variables with the %LET statement.

• Use macro variables within SAS programs.
• Use the macro variable name dot delimiter (.)

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Error Handling: 15-20%

Identify and resolve programming logic errors.

• Use the PUTLOG Statement in the Data Step to help identify logic errors.
• Use PUTLOG to write the value of a variable, formatted values, or to write values of all
variables.
• Use PUTLOG with Conditional logic.
• Use temporary variables N and ERROR to debug a DATA step.

Recognize and correct syntax errors.

• Identify the characteristics of SAS statements.

• Define SAS syntax rules including the typical types of syntax errors such as misspelled
keywords, unmatched quotation marks, missing semicolons, and invalid options.
• Use the log to help diagnose syntax errors in a given program.

Generate Reports and Output: 15-20%

Generate list reports using the PRINT procedure.

• Modify the default behavior of PROC PRINT by adding statements and options such as
o use the VAR statement to select and order variables.
o calculate totals with a SUM statement.
o select observations with a WHERE statement.
o use the ID statement to identify observations.
o use the BY statement to process groups.
o use the NOOBS and LABEL options.

Generate summary reports and frequency tables using base SAS procedures.

• Produce one-way and two-way frequency tables with the FREQ procedure.
• Enhance frequency tables with options (NLEVELS, ORDER=).
• Use PROC FREQ to validate data in a SAS data set.
• Calculate summary statistics and multilevel summaries using the MEANS procedure.
o WAYS, CLASS, VAR, OUTPUT statements
• Enhance summary tables with options.
• Identify extreme and missing values with the UNIVARIATE procedure.

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Enhance reports using user-defined formats, titles, footnotes, and SAS System
reporting options.

• Use PROC FORMAT to define custom formats.

o VALUE statement
o CNTLIN= option
• Use the LABEL statement to define descriptive column headings.
• Control the use of column headings with the LABEL and SPLIT=options in PROC PRINT
output.

Generate reports using ODS statements.

• Identify the Output Delivery System destinations.

• Create HTML, PDF, RTF, XLSX, and PPTX files with ODS statements.
• Use the STYLE=option to specify a style template.
• Generate comma separated value (CSV) files with ODS statements.

Export data

• Create a simple raw data file by using the EXPORT procedure as an alternative to the
DATA step.
o Control the export file format with common DBMS identifiers: (csv, jmp, tab,
dlm).
• Export data to Microsoft Excel using the SAS/ACCESS XLSX engine.

Note: All 23 main objectives will be tested on every exam. The 72 expanded objectives are
provided for additional explanation and define the entire domain that could be tested.