SAS Certified Professional: Advanced Programming Using SAS 9.4 Interview Questions

While some interviewers have their own style of asking, the majority of job interviews follow a standard set of questions and responses (including some of the most often-asked behavioral interview questions). Here are some of the most often asked interview questions, along with some of the greatest responses. Keep the following in mind when preparing for the SAS Certified Professional: Advanced Programming Using SAS 9.4 interview:

Q1)Difference between %EVAL and %SYSEVALF functions

To execute mathematical and logical operations with macro variables, both percent EVAL and percent SYSEVALF are employed. EVAL cannot do arithmetic calculations with operands that have floating point values, so percent let last = percent eval (4.5+3.2); returns error as percent EVAL cannot perform arithmetic calculations with operands that have floating point values. It’s at this point that the percent SYSEVALF function comes into play.

Q2)What is the SAS base program’s basic structure?

SAS’s core structure is as follows:

• ==DATA step, which recovers & manipulates data.

• ==PROC step, which interprets the data.

Q3)Describe the SAS data phase.

The Data phase generates an SAS dataset including the data as well as a “data dictionary.” The variables and their attributes are stored in the data dictionary.

Q4)What exactly is PDV?

PDV, or Program Data Vector, represents the logical area in memory. SAS produces a database of one observation at a time at the moment. During compilation, an input buffer is constructed to retain a record from an external file. Following the establishment of the input buffer, the PDV is constructed.

Q5)What data types is SAS capable of handling?

SAS has two data types: numeric and character.

Q6)In comparisons, which statement does not conduct automatic conversions?

The “where” statement in SAS does not do automatic comparison conversions.

Q7)What are some techniques for debugging and testing your SAS programme?

You can use Obs=0 and systems options to trace the programme execution in log to debug and test your SAS software.

Q8)What is the purpose of the Proc summary function?

The syntax of proc summary and proc means is same. It generates descriptive statistics for the SAS dataset’s numeric variables.

Q9)What is the purpose of Proc glm?

Simple and multiple regression, analysis of variance (ANOVAL), analysis of covariance, multivariate analysis of variance, and repeated measure analysis of variance are all performed by Proc glm.

Q10) What does SAS informats stand for?

SAS INFORMATS are used to read or write data from external files such as ASCII files, text files, and sequential files. SAS will be shown how to read data into SAS variables using the informal.

Q11)What is factor analysis and how does it work?

Factor analysis is a term that refers to a group of statistical techniques for reducing a large number of observable variables to a small number of latent components. Data reduction and summary are the primary goals of factor analysis.

Q12)How do you read the variables you require?

Input statements containing column/line pointers, informats, and length specifiers are used to read the variables.

Q13)In SAS, what are the special input delimiters?

DLM and DSD are two special input delimiters used in SAS.

Q14) How does SAS handle DSD delimiters?

SAS sees two consecutive delimiters as a missing value and eliminates quotation marks from character values when you define DSD.

Q15)What are some best SAS programming practises for working with huge data sets?

When working with huge data sets, proper SAS programming practise is to sort them once using firstobs= and obs=.

Q16) In a data set, how do you include or exclude specific variables?

DROP, KEEP Statements, and Data Collection Options can be used to include or omit individual variables in a data set.

Q17) How does SAS’ SUBSTR function work?

To abstract a substring from a character variable, use the SUBSTR function.

Q18) How do you check for faults and validate data using SAS?

Use the Log to check for mistakes, and Proc Freq, Proc Means, and sometimes Proc print to view how data looks for data validation.

Q19)What method will you use to produce test data in the absence of any input data?

Using the “put” command and “Data Null,” you will generate test data with no input data.

Q20)What is the difference between the SAS functions CEIL and FLOOR?

The “floor” function returns the largest integer that is less than or equal to the given. The “ceil” function, on the other hand, returns the smallest integer that is bigger than or equal to the argument.

Q21)What’s the distinction between SAS functions and SAS procedures?

There is a distinction between SAS functions and SAS processes.

• Each observation should only have one variable value, according to the procedures.
• Values are expect to be deliver across an observation via functions.

Q22) What is the purpose of the STOP command?

The STOP statement is use to manage the SET statement’s continual looping.

Q23) What is RUN-Group processing, and how does it work?

The RUN statement can be use to submit a PROC step without terminating the procedure.

Q24)How do you test SAS debugging?

In SAS, use the Debug clause after the ‘/’ in the data statement to debug.

Q25) How can I make an SAS data set that will last forever?

There are two procedures that must be complete in order to establish a persistent SAS data set:

• Assign a library and an engine to the project.
• Make the information. To make the data set permanent, make sure to give it a name and a library (other than WORK).

Q26) What is the SLIBREF acronym?

A server-libref is SLIBREF. It defines the libref that the server uses to identify the SAS data library when no physical name is known and the server libref differs from the client libref.

Q27) How do you tell the difference between a Match Merge and a One-to-One Merge?

If both data sets in the merge statement are sort by id, and each observation in one data set has a corresponding observation in the other data set, a one-to-one merging is appropriate. Match merging is appropriate if the observations do not match.

Q28) In SAS, what are the scrubbing procedures?

Proc Sort with the nodupkey option is the scrubbing procedure in SAS. It will get rid of any values that are duplicated\.

Q29)What does the percent include statement mean?

The percent INCLUDE statement reads a complete file into the currently running SAS program and submits it to the SAS System right away.

Q30)In SAS, how many different data kinds are there?

In SAS, there are two sorts of data. Characters and numbers are two types of data. Dates, on the other hand, are characters, despite the fact that they have implicit functions.