June 14, 2002 ANOTHER Double Feature!  Macros, and Maps

Presented by Mike Zdeb

Speaker Bio  Mike Zdeb is a research scientist in the Division of Family Health at the New York State Department of Health and an assistant professor in the epidemiology program at the School of Public Health at the State University of NY at Albany. He has been a SAS user for 10+ years and has presented papers on a number of occasions for local SAS user groups, NESUG, and SUGI. He has recently completed a BBU (books-by-users) book on making maps with SAS/GRAPH.

Overview - Macros

There are a number of SAS tools that you may never have to use. Why? The main reason is that you can usually reach the same result without them. Examples of such tools are arrays, macros, and quite possibly PROC SQL. However, though you may be able to reach the same result without resorting to these tools, the amount of SAS code needed to reach that result can be seriously lessened by using the SAS tools you may have avoided. In some situations, you might even come to the conclusion that you just cannot achieve a desired goal with the collection of SAS tools you commonly use. Hopefully this paper will show you that a little investment of time and effort in learning about macros will allow you to attain previously  unreachable goals with SAS and also lessen the amount of SAS code you currently use.

Overview - Maps

Maps can be created with SAS by using the GMAP procedure, one of the PROCs available within SAS/GRAPH. Four different map types can be created using GMAP: choropleth, prism, surface, and block. This paper will discuss creating choropleth maps, i.e. "...2-dimensional maps that represent data values as combinations of pattern and color that fill map areas" (definition from SAS/GRAPH Software Usage Version 6). Once you understand how to create a map through a series of examples, you will also learn how to customize the output of GMAP using an annotate data set. Some of the new options in version 8.2 for creating web-based maps will also be discussed.

Mapping examples on Mike's web pages, at http://www.albany.edu/~msz03/maps.html