SAS Base Programming study guide
SAS Base Programming · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The SAS Certified Specialist: Base Programming Using SAS 9.4 is a SAS Global Certification credential for programmers who want to show they have mastered foundational Base SAS skills. According to SAS, earning it demonstrates that you can read and create data files, create basic detail and summary reports using Base SAS procedures, manipulate and transform data, and identify and correct syntax and programming logic errors. The exam is based on SAS 9.4 M5 and is administered by SAS and Pearson VUE. You register using exam ID A00-231, listed as the SAS 9.4 Base Programming - Performance-Based Exam. The SAS Base Programming study guide has 4 sections and about 1,280 words.
01Access and Create Data Structures
SAS tables live in libraries. A libref is a temporary alias created with a LIBNAME statement (or assigned in a metadata environment) that points to a folder; WORK is the session library that is deleted when SAS exits.
327 words, about 2 min02Manage Data
Most manipulation happens in the DATA step, one observation at a time. Know the function families: character (SUBSTR, SCAN, INDEX, FIND, COMPRESS, STRIP, TRIM, CATX, UPCASE, LENGTH), numeric (SUM, MEAN, N, NMISS, ROUND, INT), date/time (TODAY, MDY, INTCK, INTNX, YRDIF, DATEPART), and conversion (PUT for value-to-text, INPUT for text-to-value).
313 words, about 2 min03Error Handling
Distinguish compile-time from execution-time problems. Compile-time errors (unknown variable, unbalanced quotes, missing semicolon) mean the step never runs, and the message often appears far from the real cause - a missing semicolon frequently produces an error several lines later.
316 words, about 2 min04Generate Reports and Output
PROC PRINT lists data: VAR selects and orders columns, ID replaces the observation number, BY produces sorted sections, SUM adds totals, NOOBS and LABEL adjust appearance. PROC FREQ counts: one-way and n-way TABLES, LIST for multi-way output, NOCUM/NOPERCENT/NOFREQ suppress statistics, OUT= saves counts.
324 words, about 2 min