What is Efficient SAS Coding

Coding efficiency is generally measured in CPU time, disk space or memory usage. This is perfectly reasonable for SAS code that will be submitted many more times than it will be updated. However, there are coding environments where SAS programs are being written for single production runs, and then adapted and updated for different production runs, e.g. in clinical development. In these cases a new measurement of maintenance time may be more important. This paper discusses the choices that need to be made when coding efficiently in different types of SAS programs, each illustrated by coding examples.