Professional SAS Programmer's Pocket Reference (Paperback)

by Rick Aster (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
This is the popular quick-reference guide for SAS, featuring the SAS language, routines, options, and procedures. It shows syntax and provides concise descriptions of features. The 5th edition is updated for SAS 9.1, covering new features in text processing, Unicode, XML, ODS, and much more.

From the Publisher
Purchasing this book may be the best investment you can make in your SAS programming work. Even if you already have all this information on your bookshelf -- spread out over thousands of pages in dozens of books -- it's faster and easier to have one book you can refer to for 90 percent of the questions that come up. Some professional SAS programmers using the first edition of this book have told us that they are saving an hour a week looking things up as they write SAS programs. If you save just one minute a day, this book pays for itself in a matter of weeks. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Breakfast Communications Corporation; 5 edition (August 10, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1891957120
• ISBN-13: 978-1891957123
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 4.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #261,962 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars It comes handy at some occasions., December 3, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Professional SAS Programmer's Pocket Reference (Paperback)

I found it's very convenient to have a small pocket size SAS "dictionary" around my desk - like you forget how to spell a word you refer to a dictionary, this one provides very comprehensive and concise coverage of "words" in SAS language. Don't expect to learn anything about SAS from this book just like you can't learn Chinese by reading a Chinese dictionary. But once you're pretty familiar with SAS and start to try something out, this one comes handy - it reminds you "proc content" should be "proc contents" in fact and there is a special format "SSN" to process SSN related issues efficiently. I wish this book could be thicker, providing more detailed entries for each "word". A reasonable expand from 190s pages to 300 pages will make it more useful but still can fit in my pocket.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Great contents, terrible binding, August 1, 2004

By	F. de Vries - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Professional Sas Programmer's Pocket Reference (Paperback)

A professional programmer of the dutch SAS institute advised me to buy two exemplars of this reference guide. Contents are great and easy to understand (although I am afraid that I rather prefer sas online doc), but the quality of the binding is terrible: after an estimated 30 searches in the guide, pages ware falling out of the manual. From this point of view, 9 bucks excl. shipping is a bad deal.

Frank

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Classic SAS Users Manual, January 8, 2002

By	John Kwok (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Professional SAS Programmer's Pocket Reference (Paperback)

This is a good book to have available if you don't wish to take a look at one of SAS Institute's substantial publications or a reference manual published elsewhere. However, it isn't a guide I'd recommend to someone who isn't familiar with computer programming or SAS. It's best seen as a pocket dictionary of SAS programming - and it should be used as such.