Friday, November 21, 2008

Don't give me any SAS!

I am learning SAS at work. SAS is a programming language used to produce statistical information/reports. "SAS" doesn't stand for anything; it's just SAS.

I am enjoying this educational challenge but there's a lot to learn and each section builds upon the last. You have to be in a learning frame of mind or you'll get lost.

It just so happens I'm NOT in a learning frame of mind this morning and after I read the following snippet 10 times, I felt an overwhelming urge to stop "learning" and blog.

Tell me this won't drive you to drink:

Specifying SELECT Statements without Expressions

If you don't specify a select-expression, SAS evaluates each when-expression to produce a result of true or false.

If the result is true, SAS executes the statement in the WHEN statement.

If the result is false, SAS proceeds either to the next when-expression in the current WHEN statement, or to the next WHEN statement if no more expressions are present, or to the OTHERWISE statement if one is present. (That is, SAS performs the action that is indicated in the first true WHEN statement.)

If more than one WHEN statement has a true when-expression, only the first WHEN statement is used; once a when-expression is true, no other when-expressions are evaluated.


It's only 9:30 a.m. I have a long day ahead of me.

1 comment:

Sayre said...

I don't suppose they have Cliff notes for this stuff....