SAS (software)

SAS

SAS 9 on Microsoft Windows
Developer(s)	SAS Institute
Initial release	1976; 41 years ago (1976)
Stable release	9.4 / July 10, 2013; 3 years ago (2013-07-10)
Written in	C
Operating system	Windows, IBM mainframe, Unix/Linux, OpenVMS Alpha
Type	Numerical analysis
License	Proprietary
Website	www.sas.com

SAS (Statistical Analysis System) is a software suite developed by SAS Institute for advanced analytics, multivariate analyses, business intelligence, data management, and predictive analytics.

SAS was developed at North Carolina State University from 1966 until 1976, when SAS Institute was incorporated. SAS was further developed in the 1980s and 1990s with the addition of new statistical procedures, additional components and the introduction of JMP. A point-and-click interface was added in version 9 in 2004. A social media analytics product was added in 2010.

SAS is a software suite that can mine, alter, manage and retrieve data from a variety of sources and perform statistical analysis on it. SAS provides a graphical point-and-click user interface for non-technical users and more advanced options through the SAS language. In order to use Statistical Analysis System, Data should be in a spreadsheet table format or SAS format. SAS programs have a DATA step, which retrieves and manipulates data, usually creating a SAS data set, and a PROC step, which analyzes the data.

Each step consists of a series of statements. The DATA step has executable statements that result in the software taking an action, and declarative statements that provide instructions to read a data set or alter the data's appearance. The DATA step has two phases, compilation and execution. In the compilation phase, declarative statements are processed and syntax errors are identified. Afterwards, the execution phase processes each executable statement sequentially. Data sets are organized into tables with rows called "observations" and columns called "variables". Additionally, each piece of data has a descriptor and a value.

The PROC step consists of PROC statements that call upon named procedures. Procedures perform analysis and reporting on data sets to produce statistics, analyses and graphics. There are more than 300 procedures and each one contains a substantial body of programming and statistical work. PROC statements can also display results, sort data or perform other operations. SAS Macros are pieces of code or variables that are coded once and referenced to perform repetitive tasks.