Rick Aster: Professional SAS Programming Shortcuts
Despite my best efforts and the many helpful suggestions of my publishers and editors, every book I’ve written has errors. Check this page for corrections to errors I find in Professional SAS Programming Shortcuts. If you may have found an error that is not listed here, please let me know about it by writing to me at run@globalstatements.com.
Chapter 9: The number of distinct missing values is 28.
Chapter 27, bubble sort of character string (1st and 2nd editions only): Change > to >= to make this program work correctly with strings that could contain duplicate characters.
Chapter 69 (third paragraph, 2nd edition only): investment
Page 42, middle: The log does not match the program. The correct log line for the program is:
LS=75
Page 110: Use a value informat in the INPUT statement, the INPUT function, the INFORMAT statement, or anywhere else an informat is used.
Page 136: Formats for SAS time values include TIME, TIMEAMPM, HOUR, and HHMM. Write time durations with the TIME, HOUR, HHMM, MMSS, and F formats. Formats for SAS datetime values are DATETIME, DATEAMPM, TIMEAMPM, TOD, DTDATE, DTYEAR, DTYYQC, DTMONYY, and DTWKDATX.
Page 149: In version 8, the FORCE option is no longer required for the NODUPKEY option.
Page 232: The example calculates the amount that, saved for a period of 50 years at an effective annual interest rate of 6%, results in a value of $1,000,000.
Page 242: The example, with SAS time constants written correctly:
SELECT (ZONE);
WHEN ('AT', 'EDT') DT_UNIVERSAL = DT_LOCAL - '-4:00'T;
WHEN ('ET', 'CDT') DT_UNIVERSAL = DT_LOCAL - '-5:00'T;
WHEN ('CT', 'MDT') DT_UNIVERSAL = DT_LOCAL - '-6:00'T;
WHEN ('MT', 'PDT') DT_UNIVERSAL = DT_LOCAL - '-7:00'T;
WHEN ('PT') DT_UNIVERSAL = DT_LOCAL - '-8:00'T;
OTHERWISE ;
END;
Page 249: The correct name is not CLOSE, but CLS. (CLOSE is not a good choice for the name of an array because it is the name of a function.)
Page 252: The description of the age computation formula does not match the formula shown. To correct this, change the name CURRENT to DATE so that the sentence reads:
If the day is the SAS date DATE and a person’s birthdate is BIRTH, then this statement calculates the person’s age in years:
AGE = YRDIF(BIRTH, DATE, 'Actual');
Page 270: The WHERE clause always applies to input observations, and the step reads only observations that meet the condition. With WHEREUP=YES, it does not allow the observations to be changed so that they no longer meet the condition. With WHEREUP=NO, it is possible to change data values so that observations no longer meet the WHERE condition.
Page 411: Direct access techniques such as browsing and the POINT= option may be inefficient when used with with data step views.