Saving Time and Money Using SAS - by Philip R Holland

What you will find in this book

1. Accessing SAS Data without Using SAS Code (code to read SAS data from Access, Excel, VB, 1-2-3, Approach and OpenOffice.org, using ODBC, OLE, DDE and ADO)
2. Out of Space with SAS Software? (saving disk space in your SAS programs)
3. Why Does My Job Run So Slowly? (improved DB2 to SAS data transfers and SAS data processing performance)
4. Distributing SAS/GRAPH Reports (which graphics output file created by SAS is the best for you?)
5. Importing Data from and Exporting Data to Databases without SAS/ACCESS (reading from and writing to databases and spreadsheets using Base SAS)
6. Developing SAS Applications Using SAS Enterprise Guide (hints and tips for making the best use of Enterprise Guide)

Book Reviews

• Peter Bennett, Director, I.T. Training Services Limited, UK

  Efficient software means reduced costs and maximum return on an organization's investment. The SAS System provides a myriad of tools to solve business problems, but the most efficient techniques are seldom obvious and often overlooked. What the programmer needs is a detailed reference manual, an efficiency tutorial, and a friendly mentor all rolled into one. That's what this book provides in superb fashion. Philip Holland has taken several of the key issues, explained the problems, suggested solutions, and even provided sample code. Keep this book on your desk!
  

  (from SAS Press, 2007)

• Art Carpenter, SAS Author, California Occidental Consultants

  At first glance I thought that this might be just another book of SAS coding examples. Not so! A closer inspection shows that this book is all about the problems and issues, some big and some small, that are sure to cause heartburn when they are encountered. It provides both standard and nonstandard solutions to a wide variety of production situations. Before you pull your hair out, grab this book - it will save you both time and money.
  

  (from SAS Press, 2007)

• LeRoy Bessler, Ph.D., SAS User Since 1978

  Phil Holland's unique, valuable book covers not only fundamental concerns common to all programmers (such as disk space usage and processing run times), but also their potential needs (for example, accessing SAS data without SAS Press: SAS code and transporting data between SAS and databases without using SAS/ACCESS). There is wise advice to enable you to get the most out of your hardware when using SAS. But most remarkable are the creative ideas and ingenious methods of this versatile author, eminently skilled in both SAS and other software, that can help you to get the most out of your existing SAS software by integrating it with other software that you might already have. This book is a resource without equal.
  

  (from SAS Press, 2007)

• Steve Morton, Principal Consultant, Applied System Knowledge Ltd.

  This book offers an eclectic mix of practical techniques for getting more out of your investment in SAS software. It is rare to find z/OS mainframe, Windows PC, UNIX, and client/server information in the same book, but Phil achieves this feat most effectively. His fully worked code examples and detailed explanations should enable readers not only to create their own programs when using these techniques but also to understand how and why their programs work. Use this guide to explore the capabilities of the SAS software you license, and you will surely enhance the value of those assets.
  

  (from SAS Press, 2007)

• Andrew Ratcliffe, RTSL.eu (Solutions in SAS)

  I've enjoyed reading Phil's book. It has a good mix of text and illustrations, making the book readable and instantly usable. Phil's sound, experienced advice is all very practical, and there's something in the book for everyone from SAS novices to metadata and macro masters. My copy of the book is now well-thumbed and stays within easy reach.
  

  (from SAS Press, 2007)

• Phil Mason, Independent SAS Consultant and Author

  I like Phil Holland's new book because it is quick and easy to use. You can dive in and find useful examples of code that you can incorporate immediately to craft your own solutions. With the combination of this functionality and the many step-by-step instructions and screen shots, this book will pay for itself in the amount of time it saves. I also really like the mix of topics and SAS products used, which goes where the topic leads and incorporates everything from SAS Enterprise Guide to DB2, and Base SAS to DB2 on z/OS. I highly recommend this book, which I think will be used by SAS programmers very frequently as they go about their day-to-day programming tasks.
  

  (from SAS Press, 2007)

• Andrew T. Kuligowski

  I am currently sharing my office with a couple of consultants from Great Britain. We are all managing to survive quite nicely in a single unit of a typical American cube farm. They never initiate conversation with me, but have expressed a willingness to help me out with my coding challenges whenever possible. And best of all, they don't take up any room to speak of - combined, they're only 7 ½" x 9" x 1 ½" and only weigh a few pounds!
  The two consultants - Philip R. Holland and Phil Mason - are physically working and living "across the Pond", as they say. However, in the past 12 months, both have provided the worldwide SAS community with books to assist us with our SAS coding challenges. This column will focus on Saving Time and Money Using SAS, by Philip R. Holland, which has just been published by SASPress.
  Saving Time and Money Using SAS is made up of 6 self-contained chapters, each addressing a different coding issue and some potential resolutions for it. Do you need to have an external application read data that is stored in a SAS dataset? Philip addresses that in his first chapter. Are you trying to obtain data from or pass data to some external database? Chapter 5 covers that issue!
  I appreciate Philip's willingness to look at these different issues from multiple vantage points, and I also am a big fan of his approach to use Base SAS whenever possible. (Add-on products can be a godsend, but only if your site and its management are willing to license them!) In addition, I must publicly acknowledge Mr. Holland's references to the Z/OS operating system - I am one of many coders worldwide who still do at least part of their jobs on a mainframe, and it seems as though many people have forgotten that we still exist!
  Philip does not aim at the beginning SAS coder - he hits the ground running and trusts that the reader will be able to keep up. On one hand, this feels like one of the book's strengths - there is no attempt to slow down and explain concepts that are not immediately germane to the topic at hand. However, when dealing with the numerous code snippets and screen snapshots that Philip generously provides, it seems that a few well-placed comment boxes might be used to provide some additional details to those who might need them. "Fill out the screen this way - trust me" works if the trust is earned - and in this case, it is - BUT it makes it harder to take and adapt the explanation to a different problem that the reader might encounter in their own day-to-day responsibilities.
  The strengths of this book are many; the weaknesses few. Saving Time and Money Using SAS was a good investment.
  

  (from SESUG, 2007)