About the Author

Michele M. Burlew designs and programs SAS applications for data management, data analysis, report writing, and graphics for academic and corporate clients. A SAS user since 1980, she has expertise in many SAS products and operating systems. Burlew is the author of seven SAS Press books: SAS Hash Object Programming Made Easy; Combining and Modifying SAS Data Sets: Examples, Second Edition; Output Delivery System: The Basics and Beyond (coauthor); SAS Guide to Report Writing: Examples, Second Edition; SAS Macro Programming Made Easy, Third Edition; Debugging SAS Programs: A Handbook of Tools and Techniques; and Reading External Data Files Using SAS: Examples Handbook.

Reviews

"For those unfamiliar with component objects such as hash tables, the book is a thorough introduction, offering clear explanations of elements associated with object-oriented programming and contrasting them to familiar SAS concepts such as array processing, sorting, and match/merging. . . . The author's guidance, through dozens of applied examples, makes the book an invaluable resource. Readers who learn well from examples will find the book to be effective training. At the same time that it offers practical examples, it also does an admirable job of covering the underlying principles of objects and their associated properties and methods." -- Pat Bland "OptumHealth"

"I knew this book was written for me when I read the opening sentence, 'Programming hash objects in SAS sounds like a geeky process,' and then immediately saw examples using DATA step merge, PROC SQL, and the hash object to present problems and show how the hash object fits in the solution space. The book starts with a no-nonsense approach that continues throughout, illustrating all the concepts with clear examples. I recommend this book to anyone who needs to learn how to effectively use the hash object. If you have a limited time budget, the clear examples will quickly show you how the hash objects work. When your time budget expands, you can revisit the book to learn why the hash works as it does." -- Peter Eberhardt "Fernwood Consulting Group"