About This Book

This book is divided into two distinct but complementary sections: a tutorials section and a reference section. Each tutorial is designed to give you a quick introduction to a general subject. Reference sections, on the other hand, give you focused information on specific topics.

Tutorials Section If you are new to SAS Enterprise Guide, you’ll probably want to start with the tutorials. Each of the five tutorials leads you step-by-step through a complete project, from starting SAS Enterprise Guide to documenting what you’ve done before you exit. The tutorials are self-contained so you can do them in any order. People who know nothing about SAS or SAS Enterprise Guide should be able to complete a tutorial in 30 to 45 minutes.

Reference Section Once you feel comfortable with SAS Enterprise Guide, you’ll be ready to use the reference section. This is where you’ll turn when you need a quick refresher on how to join data tables, or a detailed explanation of filtering data in a query. With 11 chapters and 88 topics, the reference section covers more information than the tutorials, but each topic is covered in just two pages so you can read it in a few minutes.

The Data for This Book The data used for the examples in this book revolve around a theme: the Fire and Ice Tours company, a fictional company offering tours to volcanoes around the world. Using a small number of data sets over and over saves you from having to learn new data for every example. The data sets are small enough that you can type them in if you want to run the examples, but to make it even easier, the data are also available for downloading via the Internet. Appendix A contains both the data and instructions on how to download the data files.

xvi About This Book This book is divided into two distinct but complementary sections a tutorials section and a reference section Each tutorial is designed to give you a quick introduction to a general subject Reference sections on the other hand give you focused information on specific topics Tutorials Section If you are new to SAS Enterprise Guide you ll probably want to start with the tutorials Each of the five tutorials leads you step by step through a complete project from starting SAS Enterprise Guide to documenting what you ve done before you exit The tutorials are self contained so you can do them in any order People who know nothing about SAS or SAS Enterprise Guide should be able to complete a tutorial in 30 to 45 minutes Reference Section Once you feel comfortable with SAS Enterprise Guide you ll be ready to use the reference section This is where you ll turn when you need a quick refresher on how to join data tables or a detailed explanation of filtering data in a query With 11 chapters and 88 topics the reference section covers more information than the tutorials but each topic is covered in just two pages so you can read it in a few minutes The Data for This Book The data used for the examples in this book revolve around a theme the Fire and Ice Tours com pany a fictional company offering tours to volcanoes around the world Using a small number of data sets over and over saves you from having to learn new data for every example The data sets are small enough that you can type them in if you want to run the examples but to make it even easier the data are also available for downloading via the Internet Appendix A contains both the data and instructions on how to download the data files