SAS Interview Questions and Answers- Part 4

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SAS Interview Questions and Answers- Part 4

Just graduated and looking for a career in data analytics? Learning SAS can give you a strong edge, especially if you’re applying to roles in pharma, finance, or government. SAS is often used in industries that require accuracy and compliance, making it a valuable skill. Many entry-level interviews for SAS roles focus on your understanding of data manipulation, basic statistical procedures, and simple coding techniques.

To help you prepare, we’ve listed the most frequently asked SAS interview questions along with clear, straightforward answers. These questions will give you a feel for the interview format and boost your confidence. Whether it’s explaining the difference between a DATA step and a PROC step or writing your first macro, you’ll be able to tackle each question with ease. Start your career with the right preparation and show employers that you’re ready to work with real-world data from day one.

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The ‘+’ operator returns a missing value if any arguments are missing, while the SUM function returns the sum of all non-missing arguments.

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You can utilize the put() function within SAS to transform a numeric variable into a character variable.

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You can utilize the input() function within SAS to convert a character variable into a numeric variable.

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The SUBSTR function in SAS is used to extract a portion of a string or character variable. It allows you to specify a starting position within the string and the number of characters to extract.

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SET combines the datasets, while MERGE aligns the observations between the datasets.

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To create macro variables one can use any of the following ways:

  • %Let
  • Call Symput
  • Proc SQl into clause
  • Macro Parameters
  • Iterative %DO statement

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INTNX function can advance a date, time, or datetime value by a given interval, and returns a date, time, or datetime value.

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To summarize, the main difference between SCAN and SUBSTR in SAS is their purpose: SCAN is used to extract words or tokens from a string based on position, while SUBSTR is used to extract a portion of a string based on specified starting position and length.

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In SAS programming, the BY statement is used within a Data Step to control the merging of datasets based on common variables. The primary purpose of the BY statement is to indicate which variables should be used as “key” variables for merging data from different datasets.

When you perform a merge operation in a SAS Data Step, you typically have two or more datasets that you want to combine based on certain variables. The BY statement is used to specify these variables. SAS then matches observations with the same values in the BY variables from different datasets and creates a single observation with data from all the matched datasets.

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The BMPD procedure is used for data analysis, regression analysis, hypothesis testing, survival analysis, time series analysis, etc.

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The application of RUN-group processing involves utilizing the RUN statement to initiate a PROC step while keeping the procedure active.

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The CALENDAR procedure represents data in a monthly calendar format from the SAS data set.

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LOWCASE and UPCASE is known as the character functions used for character handling in SAS.

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The DIVIDE function is utilized to return the division result.

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The CALL PRXFREE routine in SAS is used to release memory that was allocated for use by the Perl-Compatible Regular Expressions (PCRE) engine. PCRE is a library that provides support for regular expressions in various programming languages, including SAS.

In SAS, the CALL PRXFREE routine is used to deallocate the memory that is allocated when you use the PRX* functions to work with regular expressions. Failing to call PRXFREE after you’re done using the regular expression functions can lead to memory leaks.

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The ANYDIGIT function is employed to locate the initial instance of a numeral within a string. It furnishes the numeral’s position. Should no numeral be located, it furnishes a ‘0’. With the utilization of an additional parameter, the ANYDIGIT function can initiate the search from any specified position within the string.

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In SAS, the CALL MISSING routine is a commonly used subroutine or function that sets all variables in a specified list to missing values. This routine is particularly useful in data manipulation and data cleaning tasks within the SAS programming environment. When you use the CALL MISSING routine, you provide a list of variables as arguments, and the routine assigns missing values to those variables. This can be helpful when you need to reset variables to a neutral state or initialize them for subsequent data processing steps.

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The VFORMATX function is used to return the format assigned with the value of the given statement.

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The STD function is used to calculate the standard deviation of a dataset or a variable. The standard deviation is a measure of the amount of variation or dispersion in a set of values. It indicates how spread out the values are from the mean (average) value. The STD function in SAS calculates the sample standard deviation by default.

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Through the STD function, the standard deviation will be returned for the nonmissing statements.