Chapter 8
Managing Processing Using PROC
SQL
Imelda Go, John Grego, Jennifer
Lasecki, 2011
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PROC SQL OPTIONS
INOBS=

–
–
Used to restrict the number of input rows
Useful for possibly large queries (e.g., outer
unions)
proc sql inobs=5; select * from Ecoli
outer union corr select * from Fcoli
outer union corr select * from Entero;
quit;
Imelda Go, John Grego, Jennifer Lasecki, 2011
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PROC SQL OPTIONS
OUTOBS=

–
–
Used to restrict the number of output rows
OUTOBS= by itself restores the default (all
rows output)
Imelda Go, John Grego, Jennifer Lasecki, 2011
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Example: OUTOBS
proc sql outobs=5;
select player, atbats
from bbstats;
quit;
player
atbats
Christian Walker
271
Scott Wingo
240
Brady Thomas
231
Evan Marzilli
220
Robert Beary
211
Imelda Go, John Grego, Jennifer Lasecki, 2011
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PROC SQL OPTIONS
DOUBLE/NODOUBLE

–
–
specifies whether output is double spaced
this option does not affect the appearance of
HTML output
proc sql outobs=5 double;
select player, atbats
from bbstats;
quit;
Imelda Go, John Grego, Jennifer Lasecki, 2011
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PROC SQL OPTIONS
NUMBER/NONUMBER

–
–
–
Adds or removes row numbers from a table
The column is labeled: Row
Similar to OBS/NOOBS in PROC PRINT
proc sql outobs=5 double number;
select player, atbats
from bbstats;
quit;
Imelda Go, John Grego, Jennifer Lasecki, 2011
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PROC SQL OPTIONS
FLOW | NOFLOW
FLOW=n | FLOW=n m

–
–
–
–
Controls appearance of wide character
columns in listing output
n sets the width of the flowed column
Specifying n and m floats the width of the
column between limits
does not affect the appearance of HTML,
PDF, or RTF output
Imelda Go, John Grego, Jennifer Lasecki, 2011
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PROC SQL OPTIONS

Example of FLOW
proc sql flow = 10 15 double; select
winner.wscore label="Matching Score",
winner.date format=worddate18.
label="Date", winner.wteam label="Team
with Winning Score", loser.date
format=worddate18. label="Date",
loser.lteam label="Team with Losing
Score" from secscores as winner,
secscores as loser where
winner.wscore=loser.lscore; quit;
Imelda Go, John Grego, Jennifer Lasecki, 2011
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PROC SQL OPTIONS


RESET can be used to change
OUTOBS=, NUMBER, NODOUBLE,
NOFLOW, etc
It can be inserted between SELECT
clauses to restore options
Imelda Go, John Grego, Jennifer Lasecki, 2011
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PROC SQL OPTIONS

Example of RESET
proc sql outobs=6 double; select
player, atbats from bbstats; reset
outobs= number nodouble; select
player, hits from bbstats; quit;
Imelda Go, John Grego, Jennifer Lasecki, 2011
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Timing Information




When learning about indexes in Chapter 6,
we used the default timing information
available in the SAS Log
Timing info can be disaggregated by task
using the STIMER option
Additional task info can be obtained using
FULLSTIMER
Both methods are useful for benchmarking
Imelda Go, John Grego, Jennifer Lasecki, 2011
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Timing Information


If CPU Time is close to Real Time, than
the system is operating efficiently
In addition to Real Time and CPU Time,
FULLSTIMER provides data on
- Memory
- Involuntary CPU time-slice releases
- Page swaps
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Dictionaries



DICTIONARY.TABLES contains meta data
about tables and views
DICTIONARY.COLUMNS contains meta
data about columns in tables
Can be compared to PROC CONTENTS
Imelda Go, John Grego, Jennifer Lasecki, 2011
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Dictionaries
To find what variables are available, use
DESCRIBE TABLE
 A specific query
proc sql; select memname,
memtype, nobs, nvar,
num_character, num_numeric,
filesize, crdate from
dictionary.tables where
libname='WORK'; quit;

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