SAS Books Proc SQL Beyond The Basics Unstructured Data Analysis PROC REPORT Handbook SAS Administration From The Ground UpOnce again, I have taken a look at my SAS Shelf. Back in june 2018, I showed you Three New Additions to my SAS Shelf. Since then, I have acquired a few new books and I want to share my thoughts on them. This time, I have 5 books in quite different topics like the SQL and Report Procedures in the SAS language.

PROC SQL: Beyond the Basics Using SAS, Third Edition

The first book on my list is PROC SQL: Beyond the Basics Using SAS, Third Edition by Kirk Paul Lafler. I do not use the SQL Procedure very often. There are several reasons why. The main reason is probably that I am not comfortable with it and I do not feel like I am in control. However, sometimes you have to get out of your comfort zone. I have read the entire book. I must admit, PROC SQL and the Structured Query Language makes a lot more sense now. The language of the book is easy to understand and not too technical. Even SQL newbies like myself can understand it. I highly recommend any SAS programmer with an interest in the SQL Procedure to get a copy of the book.

The SAS Programmer’s PROC REPORT Handbook

Next up: The SAS Programmer’s PROC REPORT Handbook: Basic to Advanced Reporting Techniques by Jane Eslinger. I am not too familiar with the various report procedures like PROC REPORT myself. However, especially the Report Procedure seems to gain popularity when you look at the various programming communities. A reader of mine recommended for me to review and I have to say, it did not let me down. I can not say that I am a Proc Report expert now. However, at least I have a basic understanding of the procedure, the different statements, compute blocks and so on. If you are interested in learning about PROC REPORT, this is definitely worth the few bucks.

SAS Administration from the Ground Up

The book SAS Administration from the Ground Up: Running the SAS 9 Platform in a Metadata Server Environment is an absolute must-have for SAS administrators that work in server environments. I am not a SAS administrator myself. I am purely a programmer. However, it does not hurt to know a little bit about what does on during startup, what files are accessed and how the setup is build. This book gives a very nice and brief explanation of just that. I must admit, I am probably not going to use much of the content myself. I guess my conclusion is. If the setup and administration part of SAS is relevant to you, go get this book as fast as you can.

Unstructured Data Analysis

I like Regular Expressions and I am quite interested in text analysis. The book Unstructured Data Analysis: Entity Resolution and Regular Expressions in SAS is a very nice 150 page concoction of just that. It has a nice introduction to regular expressions in general and a good explanation of the relevant RegEx Functions in the SAS programming language. I especially like how the author managed to write a short, precise book with tons of examples and explanations. If you are interested in regular expressions in SAS, this is a must-have.

SAS User’s Guide: Basics Version 5

This is basically just a very old version of the SAS Documentation. In fact it is from 1985. I can’t say that I recommend anyone buying this. I did because sometimes I stumble upon some old code that is not documented in the online documentation anymore. A good example of this is the Implicit Array. The implicit array has not been documented online for quite a while. However, it does appear in old paper versions.

Summary

In this post, I review and recommend four SAS books that have made their way to my shelf. Some of the books on my shelf are recommended by my readers. Please do not hesitate to reach out if there is a book that I should review on the site.