PurpuraInk Consulting- Chicago, IL & San Juan, PR

V. ODS

Output from SAS V6 or earlier had some limitations given its focus
on a output for a printer: output was always in the same font, its
contents could not be parsed, and was restricted to one form of output,
namely the list file. With version 7 and higher, SAS introduced
the Output Delivery System [ODS]. The purpose of ODS is to allow
for a greater flexibility in the form and type of output SAS can generate.

By invoking ODS, you can:

• Generate SAS data files [tables] as the output of PROCedures.
• Costumize reports.
• Send output to a variety of destinations. There are two types of
  destinations: Report and Data. Report destinations
  include: LISTING, HTML,
  and PRINTER -which can be either postscript or PCL. Data
• Select, and/or exclude, any part [components] of your output.
• If more than one component is generated, organize and manage your
  output.

For example, PROC UNIVARIATE generates five components: Moments, Basic
Measures of Locations and Variability, Tests for Location, Quantiles, and
Extreme Measures. Previously, you had to generate all those five parts to
get the one you needed. Now with ODS, you can tell SAS to print out just
the one section you desire!

ODS Statements.

Note that when you invoke ODS you are
"opening" a process which has to be closed. Each "process" creates a type
of output. Failing to close one "process" implies that you want that
process to generate output. You have to invoke ODS before
the PROC whose output you want to modify, and tell ODS to close this
process when the PROC is done. In many cases, there will be no harm
in leaving the process open, besides the nuissance of generating a type of
output that you do not need.

Here is a list of ODS statements:

For opening, closing, and/or managing the ODS destination...

• ODS LISTING | CLOSE;
  This is the assumed default of ODS. By ommiting any ODS statement, ODS
  LISTING will be executed. This default implies: monospaced fonts, no tab
  information, and PROC specific priting routines. Outputs: OUTPUT for
  text, GRAPH1 for SAS/GRAPH. To send output to an external file, you can
  use the following syntax:

  ODS LISTING FILE='file specification' |
  fileref

  Try this... data; input name $ gender $ age height weight; cards; ALFRED M 14 69.0 112.5 ALICE F 13 56.5 84.0 BARBARA F 13 65.3 98.0 CAROL F 14 62.8 102.5 HENRY M 14 63.5 102.5 JAMES M 12 57.3 83.0 JANE F 12 59.8 84.5 JANET F 15 62.5 112.5 JEFFREY M 13 62.5 84.0 JOHN M 12 59.0 99.5 JOYCE F 11 51.3 50.5 JUDY F 14 64.3 90.0 LOUISE F 12 56.3 77.0 MARY F 15 66.5 112.0 PHILIP M 16 72.0 150.0 ROBERT M 12 64.8 128.0 RONALD M 15 67.0 133.0 THOMAS M 11 57.5 85.0 WILLIAM M 15 66.5 112.0 run; ods listing; proc print; run; ods listing close; proc print; run; Read the SAS log. What happened after the command ods listing close;?

• ODS HTML
  | CLOSE |

  PATH='path-for-saving-html-file (URL=base address | NONE)

  BODY='filename.html' fileref

  CONTENTS="contentsfile.html" PAGE="pagefile.html"
  FRAME="framefile.html"
  NEWFILE=NONE | PROC | OUTPUT| PAGE
  STYLE="style-definition"

  ;

  ODS HTML opens, closes, or manages the HTML file output destination.
  This means that you can make SAS generate a static web page with your
  analysis.

  Options:

  • The FILE= option is an alias for BODY=.
  • The CONTENTS= option generates a
    file with links to the individual
    parts contained in the BODY= file.
  • The
    PAGE= option creates a file with links to the
    individual pages of output contained in the BODY= file.
  • The FRAME= option creates a file with
    the information from both the CONTENTS= and the PAGE= files.
  • You can control when an HTML outputs is generated via the NEWFILE=
    option. It is
    possible to create a new .html file for each: procedure [PROC],
    output-object [OUTPUT], new page [PAGE]. By default, NEWFILE=NONE which is
    a single output file.
  • STYLE= option allows you to select one of the standard presentation
    schemes for your data. The current available styles are:

    Default Beige D3D Printer Brown serifPrinter

    Minimal Brick StatDoc FancyPrinter SansPrinter SASdocPrinter

  • You can also use HTML font attibutes inside of your titles or
    footnotes. For example, some font options are:

    Attribute	values	STYLE= attribute
    Face	Times, courier, arial	FONT_FACE
    Weight	medium, bold	FONT_WEIGHT
    color	green, red, yellow, etc	BACKGROUND FOREGROUND
    style	Italic, roman	FONT_STYLE
    size	1 to 7	FONT_SIZE
    width	normal, narrow, wide	FONT_WIDTH

  To send output to an HTMLfile:
  ODS HTML BODY='html file specification' |
  fileref
  The following code will generate an html file named newfile.html, in addition to opening a
  browser window in your SAS session since this code does not include
  a ods listing close; statement.

  If you want to have a nicer title for your table of contents than that of
  the analyses you ran,
  you can use ODS PROCLABEL to change the default title. You would write:
  ods proclabel 'This is my new title';

  This statement goes before the ods html;
  statement.

  Try this... ods proclabel 'My First SAS output in HTML!'; ods html path='c:\temp\' (url=none) body='newfile.html'; proc univariate; title 'This is my new title in purple'; var quantity amount; run; ods html close;

  Within PROC REPORT and PROC TABULATE, you can also more fancy things. I
  just include one simple example:
  

  ods listing close;
  ods html path='d:\sasdata\' (url=none) body='newfile2.html';
  proc tabulate style={background=pink foreground=blue font_face=simplex
  font_weight=bold};
  title 'This is using Proc tabulate';
  class region saletype citysize product; 
  var quantity amount pop;
  tables region, saletype, citysize
  /style={background=red foreground=blue font_face=courier
  font_weight=bold};
  run;
  ods html close;
  ods listing;
  

  Furthermore, you can use PROC FORMAT to create a format to be used for a
  STYLE to be used for particular subset of conditions within the PROC
  TABULATE procedure
  [Output file from a SAS example].

  Or you can use styles within PROC REPORT to modify your table
  [Output file from a SAS example].

  In addition, you can use HTML tools like clickable areas in graphs, to
  spice up your table and provide more information to the user
  [Output file from a SAS example].

• ODS PRINTER| CLOSE
  STYLE=style | PRINTER=printer name |
  FILE=file name | NOCOLOR|COLOR POSTSCRIPT|PS;
  Uses default printer as specified in the SAS registry for that operating
  system.
• ODS OUTPUT
  output-object(MATCH_ALL)=sastable| CLOSE;
  This statement allows you to open and create a table [SAS dataset]
  with the output from any of your analyses, therefore facilitating
  further analyses. For example, you can now save as a SAS data file,
  the correlations yielded from one of your analyses.

  The format for referencing the output-object and the new file to
  be created is:output-object=libref.filename.
  See ODS TRACE for more on output-objects.
  

  libname cdir "c:\temp\";
  ods listing close;
  ods output BasicMeasures=cdir.measures Quantiles=cdir.quantiles;
  proc univariate; 
  var quantity amount;
  run;
  ods listing;
  

  
  The preceeding code creates 2 files in the cdir library: measures and
  quantiles. Below is what the BasicMeasures file would contain.

  VarName  LocMeasure LocValue  VarMeasure            VarValue
  QUANTITY Mean       554.4722  "Std Deviation"       262.34484
  QUANTITY Median     662.5000  Variance              68825
  QUANTITY Mode       880.0000  Range                 745.00000
  QUANTITY            _         "Interquartile Range" 495.00000
  AMOUNT   Mean       12486.04  "Std Deviation" 6116
  AMOUNT   Median     14750.00  Variance 37410627
  AMOUNT   Mode       15000.00  Range 19375
  AMOUNT              _         "Interquartile Range" 11613
  

  The option
  MATCH_ALL allows for separate tables to be generated for each
  of the output-objects selected when you:

  • use BY group processing
  • repeat analyses for multiple variables [columns].

  If you use this option, ODS
  will
  automatically name the tables: sastable1, sastable2...sastableN, up to
  the number of tables needed for all the output objects.
  

  ods listing close;
  ods output BasicMeasures=cdir.measures;
  proc univariate; 
  var quantity amount;
  by region;
  run;
  ods listing;
  

  
  The preceeding code will generate one BasicMeasures table for each
  value of REGION with filenames measures#, where the pound sign is each
  instance of new number needed for each case of REGION.

  For managing and/or documenting output parts...

• ODS TRACE ON | OFF ;
  This statement is used to determine the names of the output objects
  generated by the PROC you will be running. After determining the name of
  the objects, you can use either ODS EXCLUDE or ODS SELECT to choose the
  objects you want to keep or drop.

  Exercise: data ; set ddir.ex1; run; ods trace on; proc univariate; var quantity amount; run; proc print; run; ods trace off; This exercise yields a SAS log file with information on the objects and a corresponding SAS output.

• ODS destination EXCLUDE
  selections ALL | NONE ;

  and ODS destination SELECT selections ALL | NONE;

  These statements reference the particular objects you want to select
  or exclude from you actual output from the OVERALL list which is created
  by the PROCedure you are using. Remember that you can list the output
  objects via the command ODS TRACE. The individual list of objects
  is processed first, then the overall list of objects is processed.

  Output objects can be referenced by their path, label or number:

  • full path --> Univariate.QUANTITY.BasicMeasure
  • partial path: Any part of the full path after the period until the
    end of the full path -->
    QUANTITY.BasicMeasure or
    BasicMeasure
  • label [surrounded by quotation marks]:
    " Basic Measures of Location and Variability"
  • label path: Need to use ODS TRACE /LABEL; and you will get the LABEL
    path. -->
    "The Univariate Procedure"."QUANTITY"."Basic
    Measures of Location and Variability"
  • partial label path: any part of the label after a period and
    continues to the end of the path.
  • mix of labels and paths.
  • Pound sign and a number [#n] after the label or path refers to the nth
    output of the object named. -->
    BasicMeasure#4 refers to the fourth BasicMeasure
    output.
• ODS SHOW ;
  This statement displays what will be generated or excluded for a specified
  destination. For example if I use ODS show after generating the ODS TRACE
  example, you will get in the LOG window:

  ods listing show;
  Current LISTING select list is set to default value (ALL).
  Current OVERALL select list is: ALL

  Exercise: ods listing select BasicMeasure; ods show;

  For specifying, searching, and/or customizing documents...

• ODS PATH ;
• ODS VERIFY ;

VI. Changes to the Data Library

Remember that by default, SAS 8 assumes the V8 engine to be used if
nothing is specified. SAS can recognize that one data file is of one
version given that file's extension. IF a directory ONLY has V6 files,
the V6 engine will automatically be assigned for that LIBREF when using
the LIBNAME statement.
• SAS 8 can read/write/update V6 data but you CANNOT use V8 features,
  like long variable names.
• SAS 8 cannot read V6 catalogs created on AIX [tigger]. On
  other hosts, it can read v6 catalogs, but they must be converted to be
  updated.
• SAS 8 cannot read V6.06 files created on OS/390 [mainframe].
• SAS 6 CANNOT read V8 tables [data files], views, or catalogs.
• To create V6 datasets from V8 datasets by using the
  VALIDVARNAME=V6 system option when using
  the DATA step and COPY procedure. The VALIDVARNAME option will yield a
  syntax error if you use long variable names when creating a V6 data file.

V8 Access to V6 files

TABLES	READ/WRITE/UPDATE
DATA step views	read[v8]/none[v7]
SQL views	Read
SAS/ACCESS views	Read/write/update
Catalogs	read

• Conversion of SAS data files:
  Catalogs may or may not be forward or backward compatible depending
  on the
  file format used to create that catalog, which is dependent on the version
  used upon creation.
  • PROC COPY: datasets [tables], or catalogs. This procedure leaves the
    entries in V6 format until updated. Only those updated are converted to
    V8, otherwise the entry remains in V6.
  • DATASETS procedure with the COPY statement: datasets.
  • DATA step: datasets.
  • PROC CPORT or PROC CIMPORT: catalogs. These procedures use the V6
    catalog as input and create a V8 format catalog. See PROC COPY.
• Concatenation of libraries from different Engines:
  Concatenating directories is useful to simplify V6 and V8 data
  management. I think this example explains the concept...
  

  libname ddir "d:\sasdata\";
  libname dat8 "d:\sasdata\data";      /* version 8 files */
  libname dat6 V612 "d:\sasdata\data"; /* version 6 files */
  libname dat (dat8,dat6);	/* both */
  

  
  This method can also be used for concatenating
  libraries which contain CATALOGS. Catalog contatenation can also be done
  via the CATNAME statement.

  CATNAME
  libref.catmember
  (libref1.catmember libref2.catmember...) options

  Note that upon using this method the libref.catmember
  exists as a virtual alias- there is no physical directory named this way.
  This means that this virtual directory represents a logical concatenation
  for which it will not be listed in the EXPLORER window.

  Some rules...

  Explicit concatenation definitions take precedence [Implicit is if
  you use the LIBNAME statement].

• Generation datasets:
  Now you can keep track of the historical [or different] versions of your
  data. Therefore, you can have multiple copies of the same SAS dataset and
  archive the data without having to change date of creation. Say we
  have the file
  mydata.sd2
  and I have some code as
  follows:
  
  data cdir.mydata;set cdir.mydata; run;
  
  Typically, such code will result in overwritting of
  mydata.sd2. When the generations datasets
  statement is invoked, and if the name of the SAS dataset is the
  same, SAS will keep track of the historical version instead of overwriting
  the file. Terms you might need to know:
  • Historical version: all versions of the file
  • Base version: most recently created version
  • Version: any file in the "generation set" of files.
  • Generation group: all versions of the same file.
    inclusive of the most current.
  • Version number: last 4 characters of the file name- 999
    versions maximum
  • Youngest version:
    version chronologically closest to the base version.
  • Oldest Version: version chronologically farthest to the base
    version.

  You would need to determine how many copies of the data file you want to
  keep, then SAS will append numbers at the end each time to "overwrite"
  this file, and upon reaching the total number of files allowed the numbers
  on the file name will continue to increase but the total number of files
  will remain as you determined.

  • GENMAX=|> 0:
    establishes how many generations to simultaneously maintain.
  • GENNUM= -1 | 0 | 1
    Where...
    • -1= youngest version
    • 0= current version
    • 1= first version created
      And if...
    • >0 ...implies an absolute reference to the historical version by its
      generation number.
    • < 0 ... implies a relative reference to the historical version.
    • = 0 ... implies the current version.

    Things to keep in mind:

    Do's:
    • You can browse or update historical versions.
    • You can transfer generations witih PROC COPY.
    • You can use PROC DATASETS to delete all or some of the generations,
      rename an entire generation or any member to a new base name, change the
      GENMAX value.

      Dont's:

    • You cannot keep the version number if you rename the file.
    • You cannot open a historical version for output.

    Try this... data ddir.ex1 (genmax=3); set ddir.ex1; run;

    <!--
    aqui

    Try this...

    CATNAME
    libref.catmember
    (libref1.catmember libref2.catmember...) options

    Is
    -->

• Indexing:
  If you index a SAS dataset, facilitate extraction of data, in particular
  when using the WHERE clause. This helps to improve sequential access to
  your data in a form which is more efficient.

  See SAS
  ONlineDOcs for more on this command and its syntax.

  Enhancements:

  • Pattern matching with LIKE operator.
  • Can use multiple WHERE clauses against composite indexes: Ranges, IN
    and EQ operators, in particular.

  New WHERE expression options to control the use of indexes. These are:

  IDXWHERE YES | NO

  IDXNAME YES | NO

• Integrity Contraints.
  You can control in SAS the rules to be followed to perform data
  value checking. You do this by specifying integrity constraints
  to do data validation when you update, insert, or otherwise modify your
  data values. To do such modifications, you would be using: FSVIEW,
  viewtable window, FSEDIT, DATA step with
  the MODIFY statement, PROC SQL with the INSERT INOT or SET statements,
  and the PROC APPEND statement.

  Things to know about intergrity constraints:

  • Are part of BASE SAS V8 and Follow ANSI standards.
  • cannot be defined for views or for historical versions of data.
  • General Contraints: Restrict the accepted data values for a
    variable.
    NOT NULL: garantees nonmissing values in each
    row for corresponding variables
    CHECK: verifies for specific values or range of
    values.
    UNIQUE: enforces unique values for that variable.
  • Referential Constraints
    • PRIMARY KEY: Combines the NOT NULL and UNIQUE
      options. Uses the specified variable as a that table's primary key based
      on one or more variables.
    • FOREIGN KEY: Creates a "parent/child"
      relationship between one or more variables in one data set [table] with a
      primary key in another data set. This is done by linking one or more
      rows in one table to a specific row in another table. This restricts the
      acceptable modifications to be the values of the primary key or missing.
  • Methods to create integrity contraints: PROC SQL, PROC DATASETS, SCL.

  See SAS
  ONlineDOcs for more on this command and its syntax.

VII. Changes and enhacements to PROCedures

There have been some enhacements and additions to the BASE SAS
procedures.
• PROC FORMAT
  • PROC FORMAT; VALUE
    valuename (MULTILABEL)
    ... : allowsmultiple values for a range or overlapping
    ranges.
• PROC TABULATE
  • PROC TABULATE ;

    ...
    CLASSvar/ MLF: uses the multilabel format
    defined with PROC FORMAT, taking advantange of the ovelapping ranges but
    records will be counted twice.

• PROC MEANS
• PROC PRINT
• PROC REPORT
• PROC SORT
• PROC SQL
• PROC TABULATE
• PROC IMPORT
• PROC EXPORTAs well as some changes and enhancements to the SAS/GRAPH procedures.
• PROC GCHART.
  You can now generate three
  dimensional horizontal and vertical bar, and pie charts with PROC
  GCHART. The syntax is:
  PROC GCHART; HBAR3D | VBAR3D chart
  variables / options

  There are also a series of new options:

  • FONTREF: draws reference lines
    in front of 3D graphs.
  • OUTSIDE=statistic:
    displays the statistic above the bar.
  • INSIDE=statistic:
    displays the statistic inside the bar.
  • NOPLANE: supresses all
    vertical or/and horizontal planes in the 3D graphs.
  • statistic-nameLABEL='string'
    : controls the text of the statistics headers.
  • SHAPE=BLOCK | CYNLINDER | HEXAGON
| PRIMS | STAR: this option changes the shape of the 3D
    bars.
  • SPLIT='character' :
    defines a character that will cause a text line to split upon needed to
    wrap long axis labels.
  • COUTLINE=SAME |color:
    specifies the colors for outline of the bars or slices of the chart. SAME
    matches the outline with the color of the bar or slice.
  • WOUTLINE=n: changes the width
    of the outline width of the bars or slices of a graph.
  • NOFRAME: prevents default frame
    to be drawn around plot.
• PROC GPLOT
  Now you can use the SYMBOL statement to control the width of the box whan
  using the
  INTERPOL=BOX or the
  INTERPOL=HILOB options for box and
  whisker plots. The option
  BWIDTH has been added to the
  syntax.

  The syntax is:
  SYMBOL I=BOX F | J | T | HILO
  C | B | T | J
  CV=color CO=color
  

  See SAS
  ONlineDOcs for more on this command and its syntax.

• ANNOTATE facility: new options.
  • CBORDER=color : draws
    a border of the specified color around the label or symbol. Unfilled box
    by default.
  • CBORDER='CTEXT': draws a border
    around a label or symbol. Unfilled box.
  • CBORDER='': turns CBORDER off.
  • CBOX=color :fills box
    with the specified color behind the label or symbol.
  • CBOX='CBACK' : fills
    box withthe same color as that specified for CBACK. No borders.
  • CBACK='' : turns COBX
    off.
• LEGEND statement: new option.
  LEGEND FWDITH=n: controls
  the thickness of the line of the legend frame drawn.

VIII. Other Changes

• SAS/ACCESS
• New or improved formats:
  Character formats are compatible with the new 32K limit restriction.
• PROCS: new and enhanced.
  • PROC TEMPLATE
SOURCE style
DEFINE STYLE style-name; PARENT=parent;
REPLACE fonts; 'FONT TYPE=(font_attribute(s))
END; RUN:

    This procedure allows you to modify existing,
    or create new, table definitions [default templates] which can be used to
    control every aspect of reports. Such table definitions contain
    information on: column ordering, style information, cell formats, as well
    as other formatting characteristics.
    See SAS
    ONlineDOcs for more on this command and its syntax.

    Try this... proc template; source styles.printer; run; See what is written in the SAS LOG. You can take this code and modify it and save it with a new name [2 level names needed: Styles.mynewstyle].

• TABULATE: enhancements related to style information.
  Also see under ODS HTML for STYLE= information on attributes.

  TO change	Use Style=on
  class headings	CLASS statement
  Keyword headings	KEYWORD statement
  Box cell	BOX= option
  Class level headings	CLASSLEV statement
  Analysis variable headings	VAR statement
  data cells	PROC TABULATE statement

• REPORT
  STYLE= option. See SAS
  ONlineDOcs for more on this command and its syntax.

IX. SAS help

• ONLINE DOCS
  A full installation V8 SAS ONLINE DOCS is available from a Server
  Services installation or an ACCC lab at:

  
  N:\SAS\SASOnlineDocV8\sasdoc\sashtml\onldoc.htm

  NOTE: SAS installation prefers Internet Explorer 5 for
  viewing the ONLINE DOCS help system. If you click the URL above and the
  left pane does not open with an index with 4 tabs,
  try opening this file with Internet Explorer instead of Netscape.

• SAS System Help
  

  Exercise: Use the SAS SYSTEM HELP and find the following... Syntax for PROC TABULATE. An example for the PROC TABULATE. Summary of System Options for Windows. Converting User-Written Informats from Earlier Releases to Version 8. GCHART procedure.

  Note that some of the information above is available via the web at:

• What's
  New in SAS Software for Version 8
• What's
  New in SAS Software for Release 8.1

X. Code for most Exercises

libname ddir "d:\sasdata\";
libname dat8 "d:\sasdata\data";
libname dat6 V612 "d:\sasdata\data";
libname dat (dat8,dat6);

data; set ddir.ex1; run;

ods trace on /label;
proc univariate; 
var quantity amount;
run;
proc print; run;

ods trace off;

ods show;
ods listing select BasicMeasure;
ods listing show;

/* ------ putting out one file with basic measure in it */
ods listing close;
ods output BasicMeasures=ddir.bmeasure;
proc univariate; 
var quantity amount;
run;
ods output close;
ods listing;
/* ---- ods html -- */
ods listing close;
ods proclabel 'My first sas HTML file!';
ods html path='d:\sasdata\' (url=none) body='newfile.html'
contents='contents.html' 
page='page.html' frame='frame.html' style=brick};
proc univariate;
title 'This is my new title in purple
and times';
var quantity amount;
run;
ods html close;

ods listing close;
ods html path='d:\sasdata\' (url=none) body='newfile2.html';
proc tabulate style={background=pink foreground=blue font_face=simplex
font_weight=bold};
title 'This is using Proc tabulate';
class region saletype citysize product; 
var quantity amount pop;
tables region, saletype, citysize
/style={background=red foreground=blue font_face=courier
font_weight=bold};
run;
ods html close;
ods listing;

Where else can I go for more information?

Your best solution is always the help system of the SAS program. In
addition, here are some suggestions.