The full name of the SAS system is the Statistics Analysis System, which was first compiled by two biostatistics graduate students at North Carolina State University, and
In 1976, the
SAS Software Research Institute
was established and SAS software was officially launched. SAS is a large-scale integrated information system used for decision support, but the earliest function of this software system is limited to statistical analysis. Up to now, the statistical analysis function is still an important part and core function of it. The current version of SAS is version 9.0 and the size is about 1G. After years of development, SAS has been adopted by nearly 30,000 institutions in more than 120 countries and regions around the world, with more than 3 million direct users, covering finance, medicine and health, production, transportation, communication, government, education and scientific research. and other fields. In the field of data processing and statistical analysis, the SAS system is known as the international standard software system, and was selected as the first choice for establishing databases in 1996-97. A giant in the statistical software world.
SAS system is a combined software system, which is composed of multiple functional modules, and its basic part is the BASE SAS module. The BASE SAS module is the core of the SAS system. It undertakes the main
data
management tasks, manages the user environment, processes user languages, and calls other SAS modules and products. That is to say, the operation of the SAS system must first start the BASE SAS module, which in addition to its own data management, program design and
descriptive
statistical computing functions, is also the central dispatching room of the SAS system. It can not only exist alone, but also form a complete system together with other products or modules. The installation and update of each module can be carried out very conveniently through its installer. The SAS system has flexible function expansion interfaces and powerful function modules. On the basis of BASE SAS, the following different modules can be added to add different functions: SAS/STAT (statistical analysis module), SAS/GRAPH (graphing module) , SAS/
QC
(Quality Control Module), SAS/ETS (
Econometrics
and Time Series Analysis Module), SAS/OR (Operations Research Module), SAS/IML (Interactive Matrix Programming Language Module), SAS/FSP ( Interactive menu system module for fast data processing), SAS/AF (interactive full-screen software application system module) and so on. SAS has an intelligent graphing system that can draw not only various statistical graphs, but also maps. SAS provides several statistical procedures, each with a rich set of options. Users can also achieve more complex statistical analysis through a series of processing of the data set. In addition, SAS also provides various probability analysis functions,
quantile
functions, sample statistics functions and
random number
generation functions
, enabling users to easily implement special statistical requirements.
How SAS works
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SAS is developed from the
mainframe
system, and its core operation mode is program-driven. After years of development, it has now become a complete computer language, and its user interface also fully reflects this feature: it uses MDI (multi-document interface), the user enters the program in the PGM window, and the analysis results are output in the OUTPUT window in the form of text. Using the procedural approach, the user can do all the work that needs to be done, including statistical analysis, forecasting, modeling, and simulated sampling.
However, this makes it difficult for beginners to learn the SAS language
when using SAS . The Windows version of SAS has developed several graphical operation interfaces according to different user groups. These graphical operation interfaces have their own characteristics and are very convenient to use. However, because there are not many domestic literatures introducing them, and it is not the focus of SAS promotion, it is not known to the vast majority of people.