SAS - User Interface

SAS Programs are created using a user interface known as SAS Studio.

Below is a description of various windows and their usage.

SAS Main Window

This is the window you see on entering the SAS environment. In the left is the Navigation Paneused to navigate various programming features. In the right is the Work Area which is used for writing the code and executing it.

Code Autocomplete

This is a very powerful feature which helps getting the correct syntax of SAS keywords as well as provides link to the documentation for that keyword.

Program Execution

The execution of code is done by pressing the run icon, which is the first icon from left or the F3 button.

Program Log

The log of the executed code is available under the Log tab. It describes the errors, warnings or notes about the program’s execution. This is the window where you get all the clues to troubleshoot your code.

Program Result

The result of the code execution is seen in the RESULTS tab. By default they are formatted as html tables.

Program Tabs

The Navigation Area contains features to create and manage programs. It also provides the pre-built functionalities to be used with your program.

Server Files and Folders

Under this tab we can create additional programs, import data to be analyzed and query the existing data. It can also be used to create folder shortcuts.

Tasks

The Tasks tab provides features to use in-built SAS programs by supplying only the input variables. For example under the statistics folder you can find a SAS program to do linear regression by only supplying the SAS data set name and variable names.

Snippets

The snippets tab provides features to write SAS Macro and generate files from the existing data set

Program Libraries

SAS stores the datasets in SAS libraries. The temporary library is available only for a single session and it is named as WORK. But the permanent libraries are available always.

File Shortcuts

This tab is used to access files which are stored outside the SAS environment. The shortcuts to such files are stored under this tab.