SAS Starter Kit:  Frequently Asked Questions 

If your question is not answered in the FAQs listed below, please see our main FAQ page.  That page contains all of these FAQs, as well as about 50 more.

Installing, Customizing, Updating, Renewing

• See the pages on Installing, Customizing, Updating, Renewing for help with these topics.

Reading/Writing Files

• Converting among SAS, SPSS and Stata
  • How do I convert among SAS, SPSS and Stata data files?
• Reading/Writing Data Files
  • How do I read a file that uses commas, tabs or spaces as delimiters to separate variables?
  • How do I read a delimited file with missing values?
  • How do I read a delimited file that has delimiters embedded in the data?
  • What are some common infile options for reading a raw data file?
  • How do I read raw data files compressed with gzip (.gz files) in SAS?
  • How do I write a data file that uses commas, tabs or spaces as delimiters between variables?
  • How do I read/write Excel files in SAS version 8?
• Reading/Writing SAS Files with Formats
  • How do I use a SAS data file with a format library?
  • How do I use a SAS data file when I don't have its format library?

Data Management

• How do I make unique anonymous ID variables for my data?
• How can I create an enumeration variable by groups?
• How can I see the number of missing values and patterns of missing values in my data file?
• How can I count the number of missing values for a character variable?
• How can I increment dates in SAS?
• How can I find things in a character variable in SAS?
• How do I standardize variables (make them have a mean of 0 and sd of 1)?
• Is there a quick way to create dummy variables?  

Statistics

• ANOVA
  • How can I do test of simple main effects?
  • How can I do ANOVA contrasts?
  • How can I test contrasts and interaction contrasts using the estimate statement?
• Linear regression
  • How do I interpret the parameter estimates for dummy variables in proc reg or proc glm?
  • How can I compare regression coefficients between two groups?  
  • How can I compare regression coefficients across three (or more) groups?  
  • How can I compute Omega Squared in SAS after proc glm?
• Logistic regression
  • How do I interpret odds ratios in logistic regression?  
  • Why are my logistic results reversed?
  • How do I do a conditional logit model analysis in SAS?

Graphics

• How can I graph two (or more) groups using different symbols?
• What are some of the different symbols that I can use on a scatter plot?
• How can I move text on a plot?
• How do I make a histogram with percentage on top of each bar?

Other

• How can I change the way variables are displayed in proc freq?  
• How can I put a value from a data file to a macro variable?
• How can I create tables using proc tabulate?