Date:         Wed, 21 Apr 1999 14:16:14 -0700
Reply-To:     "Karsten M. Self" <kmself@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>
From:         "Karsten M. Self" <kmself@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Organization: Self Analysis
Subject:      Re: Favorite programs which support work with SAS
Comments: To: Phil Mason <phil_mason@EMAIL.COM>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

> Date:    Wed, 21 Apr 1999 11:34:26 +0100
> From:    Phil Mason <phil_mason@EMAIL.COM>
> Subject: Favorite programs which support work with SAS
>
> Just had an idea of sharing the names of my favorite programs which support
> my work with SAS. Perhaps people could contribute so that we could make a
> list of useful programs which people could consider getting to make their
> SAS programming life easier.
>
> For instance the contributions could be in the following form:
 
Program: vi, vim
Platform: Unix, Linux, others
Homepage: http://www.vim.org/
Cost: Free
Purpose: Powerful, if idisyncratic, text editor, allows context-based
editing, autoindent, code highlighting (vim) and other advanced
features, command filtering.
 
Program: emacs, xemacs
Platform: Unix, Linux, others
Homepage: http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/
Cost: Free
Purpose: Even more powerful, even more idisyncratic, text editor+.  Does
Everything [tm].  Third-party sas mode provides a 90% replacement for
DMS interactive SAS sessions.
 
Program: grep, sed, awk
Platform:  Unix, Linux, others
Homepage:
Cost: Free
Purpose: Text filtering and manipulation tools.  Makes mincemeat of long
SAS logs and listings, allows quick searching for note, warning, and
error messages, allow for pre-processing raw input data.
 
Program: mpage
Platform:  Unix, Linux, others
Homepage:
http://rufus.w3.org/linux/RPM/rawhide/1.0/i386/RedHat/RPMS/mpage-2.4-7.i386.html
Cost: Free
Purpose: filters input file for postscript printing or viewing, allowing
output of multiple logical pages per physical sheet of paper.
 
Program: ghostview, gv
Platform:  Unix, Linux, others
Homepage: http://wino.physik.uni-mainz.de/~plass/gv/
Cost: Free
Purpose: gv is a program to view and navigate through PostScript and PDF
documents on an X display by providing a user interface for the
ghostscript interpreter. It is based on ghostview.
 
Program: head, tail, less
Platform:  Unix, Linux, others
Homepage: ftp://ftp.gnu.org/pub/gnu/textutils/
Cost: Free
Purpose: standard Unix utilities for extracting the first or last lines
of a file, or for paging through a file.  Just damned useful.
 
Program: gzip, bzip, b2zip
Platform:  Unix, Linux, others
Homepage: http://www.gnu.org/software/gzip/gzip.html
Cost: Free
Purpose: file compression and decompression utilities.
 
Program: ps, top, /proc filesystem (where supported)
Platform:  Unix, Linux, others
Homepage: http://www.groupsys.com/topinfo
Cost: Free
Purpose: Resource monitoring.  Useful for finding out what your SAS
program is doing, whether it is doing anything, or when SAS resource
reporting is at odds with reality (e.g.:  memory utilization when
accessing formats).
 
Program: RCS, CVS
Platform:  Unix, Linux, others
Homepage:  http://www.cyclic.com/
Cost: Free
Purpose: Software and binary file version control.  The best way to
mitigate the most common two causes of errers:  you or your co-workers
mucking with working code.
 
Program: R, S, S-Plus
Platform:  Unix, Linux, others
Homepage: http://lib.stat.cmu.edu/R/CRAN/contents.html
Cost: Free
Purpose: Advanced statistical functions.  While overlapping to an extent
with SAS/Graph and SAS/Stat, functionality extends beyond the scope of
either.  "R is a language and run-time environment for carrying out
interactive statistical data analysis. It is not entirely dissimilar to
the S language developed at AT&T Bell Laboratories. S users will find
the environment familiar and a good deal of S software will run without
change under R."
 
Program: gnuplot
Platform:  Unix, Linux, others
Homepage: http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Foothills/6647/
Cost: Free
Purpose: Data plotting and presentation language.  Much simpler syntax
and output control than SAS/Graph, much more visually appealing output
with far less effort.  R includes extensive graphics support as well.
 
Program: DBMSCopy
Platform:  Unix, Linux, Windows, others
Homepage: http://www.conceptual.com/
Cost: ~$250 - $450 +
Purpose: Data conversion and connectivity products.  Includes a
scriptable translation engine, standalone interface engines, and other
tools.  Multi-platform.  Allows transparent exchange of data between SAS
and other Unix and PC applications, including other versions (and
platforms) of SAS.
 
 
--
Karsten M. Self (kmself@ix.netcom.com)
 
    What part of "Gestalt" don't you understand?
    Welchen Teil von "Gestalt" verstehen Sie nicht?
 
  Web: http://www.netcom.com/~kmself/
  SAS for Linux: http://www.netcom.com/~kmself/SAS/SAS4Linux.html