Documentation. Functions
Posted by Oleg Solovyev on Jan 3, 2010
| SAS has a lot of built in functions. I do never learn their names. If I use a function frequently it stands the test of time and etches in my memory. If I do not remember the function’s name I look it up in the help. When I just started programming SAS I used Help Search tab for that. E.g. when I was looking how to concatenate strings I typed “concatenate strings” in |
the Search field and pushed the List Topics button and found “Functions and Call Routines CATX function” link.
Later I found the page where all functions are grouped by the type of data and followed by a small description. It is available through Help tab: Contents → SAS Products → Base SAS → SAS Language Dictionary → Dictionary of Language Elements → Functions and CALL Routines → Functions and CALL Routines by category.
If you are using Base SAS (old programmers interface) you can access help through menu: Help → SAS Help and Documentation. Enterprise Guide and Enterprise Miner don’t have such a menu. I recommend those users to create a shortcut to the SAS Help on their desktop. One has to open the C:Program FilesSASSAS 9.1corehelp catalog, right click on the common.chm file and choose Send To → Desktop (create shortcut).