SAS 9 Tips · Part II

Part 1 | Part 3

ABSTRACT

SAS® 9 has many new features, as well as all the old ones. This paper is the second part of a three part series which will outline some of the best new features that I have found over the last 3 years that I have been using SAS 9.  In the first part I discussed the Data Step Features.  In this part I’ll cover the ODS and Graph Features.  Part 3 will discuss Macro, SQL, and some miscellaneous features.

Introduction

The paper is based on a series of tips & techniques that I publish to a list of subscribers to my newsletter (see www.woodstreet.org.uk). Since this is a hands on workshop I will outline the feature we are looking at, and then we will follow through some example code to see how the feature works and what can be varied. Remember that the tips & techniques covered here are only a small subset of everything that is available in SAS 9. You should make sure that you read the “What’s New” documentation for the version of SAS 9 that you have. And don’t forget to always read the changes and enhancements for each new service pack you get too.

 

Putting multiple graphs & tables on an HTML page

The guys at SAS have produced a wonderful new tagset called the HTML Panel tagset. This will be available in SAS 9.2, but can be downloaded and used now from this page http://support.sas.com/rnd/base/topics/odsmarkup/htmlpanel.html, which also describes how to use it.

The tagset lets you do pretty much anything that you can do with the normal ODS HTML destination, except you can break your page up into rows and columns. So you could have 2 graphs at the top, followed by a table, then perhaps 3 columns with graphs in each, etc. Just use your imagination.

The following code gives you a bit of an idea what can be done with this tagset. It starts with 4 columns of bar charts, over 3 rows. Then it has a report. And finally 5 columns of pie charts over 2 rows.

Note: before you can use this tagset you need to download it and run the proc template code in SAS to define it.

Sample Program

%let panelcolumns = 4;

%let panelborder = 4;

ods tagsets.htmlpanel file="C:\bypanel2.html" gpath='c:\' options(doc='help');

goptions device=java xpixels=320 ypixels=240;

title1 'Product Reports' ;

footnote1 ;

proc summary data=sashelp.shoes nway ;

  class region product ;

  var stores sales inventory returns ;

  output out=sum sum= mean= /autolabel autoname ;

run ;

proc gchart data=sum ;

  by region ;

  vbar product / sumvar=sales_sum pattid=midpoint discrete ;

run;

quit;

proc summary data=sashelp.shoes nway ;

  class region subsidiary ;

  var stores sales inventory returns ;

  output out=sum sum= mean= /autolabel autoname ;

run ;

%let panelcolumns = 5;

%let panelborder = 1;

ods tagsets.htmlpanel ;

title 'Summary data' ;

proc print data=sum ;

run ;

title 'Subsidiary Reports' ;

%let panelcolumns = 5;

%let panelborder = 1;

ods tagsets.htmlpanel ;

goptions dev=java xpixels=160 ypixels=120;

proc gchart data=sum ;

  by region ;

  pie subsidiary / sumvar=sales_sum discrete ;

run;

quit;

ods _all_ close;

Output

Screen Shot 1

Screen Shot 2

 

Area charts which can compare magnitudes of variables in categories

The GAREABAR procedure in SAS/Graph lets you compare the magnitudes of 2 variables for each category of data using exact and relative magnitudes of values. It only works with ODS using the activex or actimgx driver though.

The following example plots sales on the x-axis, relative percent of number of salespersons on the y-axis, with a bar for each site. Additionally each bar is sub-grouped by quarter.

SAS Log

goptions reset=all device=activex ;

 

ods html file='c:\test.html' ;

 

data totals;

   input Site $ Quarter $ Sales Salespersons;

cards;

Lima    1 4043.97    4

NY      1 4225.26   12

Rome    1 16543.97   6

Lima    2 3723.44    5

NY      2 4595.07   18

Rome    2 2558.29   10

Lima    3 4437.96    8

NY      3 5847.91   24

Rome    3 3789.85   14

Lima    4 6065.57   10

NY      4 23388.51  26

Rome    4 1509.08   16

;

proc gareabar data=totals;

   hbar site*salespersons /sumvar=sales

                           subgroup=quarter

                           rstat=SUM

                           wstat=PCT;

run ; quit ;

 

ods html close;

Plot details of slices in a Pie Graph

In SAS 9 there is a new parameter in PROC GCHART that can be used when making PIE charts. It allows you to produce an inner pie overlay, showing major components that make up outer pie slices. This can be useful to get even more information into your chart. See the example below.

SAS Program

ods html file='c:\test.html' gpath='c:\' ;

goptions reset=all device=png

         xmax=20 ymax=12 /* make PNG bigger */

         ftext='Arial' htext=4pct /* use some nice looking text */;

 

data countries;

  input country $ 1-14 region $16-26 Machinery;

  cards;

Taiwan         Asia       6.1

Korea          Asia       4.6

Malaysia       Asia       4.4

Malaysia2      Asia       3.9

Malaysia4      Asia       3.9

Malaysia5      Asia       1.5

U.S.           U.S.       39.1

Belgium        Europe     2.6

Germany        Europe     7.8

United Kingdom Europe     3.9

France         Europe     3.9

Santa          Antarctica 1.1

Bob            Antarctica 1.0

Cydonia        Mars       1.1

Tims House     Mars 1.0

China          Asia       10.2

Malaysia3      Asia       3.9

;

run;

proc gchart;

  pie region / angle=320

               slice=outside

               percent=inside

               value=none

               sumvar=Machinery

               detail_percent=best

               detail=country

               descending ;

run; quit;

ods html close ;

 

Generating graphs automatically for some procedures

There is a new feature available for some SAS/STAT procedures in SAS 9 which will produce a graph automatically. One such procedure is PROC LIFETEST. To get the graph you simply turn ODS GRAPHICS ON and then choose the graph required using the plots=(variable) option on PROC LIFETEST.

Sample code

ods listing close ;

ods html file='lifetest.html' style=mystyle;

ods graphics on;

proc lifetest data=sasuser.fitness;

  time age;

  survival confband=all plots=(hwb);

run;

ods graphics off;

ods html close;

Graph produced

 

Using Java & ActiveX to generate static graphs

In SAS 9 there are 2 new graphic devices that can be used to create graphs called actximg & javaimg. These produce very good looking graphics but are not interactive graphics, as their siblings are (ActiveX & Java). The files produced are actually in PNG format and by default will be 640x480 pixels (VGA). Try them out and see how easy it is to produce excellent looking output. The graph produced below was only 5.6kb in size.

Sample code

goptions device=actximg ;

/*goptions device=javaimg ;*/

ods html body='c:\test.html'

         gpath='c:\'

         (url=none) ;

proc gchart data=sashelp.shoes ;

  vbar3d product / sumvar=sales ;

run ;

ods html close ;

Graph produced using ActXimg

Make combined Bar chart and plot the easy way

In SAS 9 there is a new SAS/Graph procedure which can make a combined vertical bar chart with a plot line on it. It is great for comparing two exact and relative magnitudes of values. It only works with ODS using the activex or actimgx driver though.

SAS Log

goptions reset=all device=activex ;

 

ods html file='c:\test.html' ;

 

proc gbarline data=sashelp.prdsale;

  bar product / sumvar=actual ;

  plot predict ;

run; quit;

 

ods html close;

Screen Shot

Producing multi-column reports

From SAS 9 onwards there is a new ODS option called columns= which allows you to choose the number of columns to produce in your output. This works for some destinations including PDF, RTF & PS.

The following example shows how this can be used to send output to various destinations & select various numbers of columns by using macro variables.

SAS Program

%let dest=rtf; * pdf, ps or rtf ;

%let cols=2 ;

ods &dest columns=&cols file="c:\test.&dest" ;

goptions rotate=landscape ;

proc print data=sashelp.shoes ;

  var region stores sales ;

run ;

ods &dest close ;

1^st page of Output

Page x of y in RTF & PDF

In SAS 9 if you want to add page numbers to your RTF output in the form of “page x of y” then you can use the in-line formatting by specifying an escape character and {pageof} – which will generate RTF code to display x of y on each page. {pageof} only works for the RTF destination.

If you want to do this for the PDF or Printer destination.then you need to use a slightly different technique. You can use the in-line style directive {thispage} which will give the current page number, and {lastpage} will give the last page number.

Sample code for RTF

ods escapechar = '\';

title 'This document will have page x of y '

      j=r 'Page \{pageof}' ;

ods rtf file='c:\test.rtf' ;

proc print data=sashelp.prdsale;

run;

ods rtf close;

Sample code for PDF

ods escapechar = '\';

title 'This document will have page x of y '

      j=r 'Page \{thispage} of \{lastpage}' ;

ods pdf file='c:\test.pdf' ;

proc print data=sashelp.prdsale;

run;

ods pdf close;

Discovering ODS events, to help make tagsets

ODS is very flexible and provides PROC TEMPLATE which can be used to create your own custom tagsets. Then using the MARKUP destination you can use your tagset to create the required output. This is a hugely powerful and flexible facility, but often baffles those trying to use it. One common question is “what events should I define in my tagset?”. Well the developer of  the ODS tagset mechanism (Eric Gebhart at SAS) has provided 2 tagsets that can be used to display the events that occur when producing some ODS output.

EVENT_MAP

creates XML output that shows which events are being triggered and which variables are used by an event to send output from a SAS process to an output file. When you run a SAS process with EVENT_MAP, ODS writes XML markup to an output file that shows all event names and variable names as tags. The output helps you to create your own tagsets. e.g.

ods markup file='test.xml' tagset=event_map ;

proc print data=sashelp.class ; run ;

ods _all_ close ;

dm "wbrowse 'test.xml'" ;

SHORT_MAP

creates a subset of the XML output that is created by EVENT_MAP. e.g.

ods markup file='test.xml' tagset=short_map ;

proc print data=sashelp.class ; run ;

ods _all_ close ;

dm "wbrowse 'test.xml'" ;

 

 

Contact Information

Your comments and questions are valued and encouraged.  Contact the author at:

Phil Mason

Wood Street Consultants Ltd.

16 Wood Street

Wallingford, Oxfordshire, OX10 0AY, ENGLAND

E-mail: phil@woodstreet.org.uk

Web: www.woodstreet.org.uk

 

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