Debugging SAS Programs: A Handbook of Tools and Techinques

Rating:
Summary: Kick Out the Jams
Review: Expert SAS programmer Burlew provides various techniques for interpreting and preventing programming errors in this hefty, (and expensive) technical book from SAS Publishing. While there is a great deal of useful information, the book awkwardly combines the simple and the advanced. For example, chapters 1 and 6 explain automatically generated error messages in SAS logfiles. A great many of these errors are either self-explanatory, unnecessary to understand in the detail presented here, or may not be included in your own program logs. Still, it is very helpful to have these listed and explained in a compact form.

The value of three other chapters will also depend on the experience of the user and the type of software used. One very long chapter is devoted to debugging errors in macros; if you don't use macros, these chapters are of limited use. Another chapter, "Debugging SAS DATA Steps with the DATA Step Debugger," is apparently only for SAS for Windows software. Furthermore, the correct programming is superimposed on very small pictures resembling Windows screens; it is frustrating to read the resulting tiny font size.

Chapter 3, "Debugging SAS Language Programs," is the most helpful one for the intermediate level user. One of the difficulties in SAS and other languages is that a program may run and produce output, but contain undetected errors. Burlew explains a variety of clever options statements and SAS language statements that improve your ability to detect logical, syntactic, and semantic errors. Another nice feature is an Appendix that describes how to build the data sets that are used as exemplars throughout the book.

Chapters are as follows:

1 .Understanding the Types of Errors in SAS Programs, p. 24
2. Reading the SAS Log and Interpreting SAS Messages, p. 29
3. Debugging SAS Language Programs, p. 45
4. Debugging SAS DATA Steps with the DATA Step Debugger, p. 109
5. Debugging SAS Macro Language, p. 139
6. Base SAS Messages, p. 207
7. Macro Facility Messages, p. 293

Two appendices begin on page 325, and an index on page 345. I can recommend this book for experienced users, especially those who know and use macros. (NOTE: Burlew has written a book titled "SAS Macro Programming Made Easy" that may be helpful.) Another guide that will help prevent data set programming errors is the somewhat easier, "Cody's Data Cleaning Techniques Using SAS Software," by Ron Cody.