topic Proc Freq in SAS Procedures

Proc Freq

bgs — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 13:36:11 GMT

Besides providing frequency, percentage , cumulative frequency and cumulative percentage - what is the practical application or where is proc freq used.

Please do feel free to provide examples of its usage.

Re: Proc Freq

RW9 — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 10:56:52 GMT

Sorry not sure what the question is (was really tempted to put a bleep in there)? Look at the SAS documentation for what a procedure is used for, what its parameters and outputs are etc. Each procedure is designed with a purpose, even if it may seem very similar to means/summary etc.

Re: Proc Freq

bgs — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 11:09:01 GMT

What I meant was what are the uses of proc freq on a practical level ?
What use is proc freq to a user?

Re: Proc Freq

RW9 — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 11:44:35 GMT

Its very useful if you want to get frequency counts?

Re: Proc Freq

samnan — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 13:10:30 GMT

PROC FREQ is also useful to do Univariate Analysis to identify significant categorical variables

Re: Proc Freq

data_null__ — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 13:31:25 GMT

Your question can be answer most effectively by reading the bleeping documentation where there are numerous examples of its usage .

Re: Proc Freq

ChrisHemedinger — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 13:38:48 GMT

As a public service, I'll list the examples that @data_null__ was referring to. These are just a few things that PROC FREQ can do, with more being added all of the time.

Re: Proc Freq

ballardw — Tue, 19 Jan 2016 16:07:49 GMT

In addition is often use proc freq to:

Check skip patterns of responses in survey data or any data entry system. Example: Responses to question 10 should match numbers or response categories 3 and 4 to Question 6. Table q10*Q6; will show me right away if there is a data issue.

Proc freq is almost always the first tool I look to when doing any kind of data cleaning or just getting to know new data set.

It may provide voluminous data if there are lots of continuous variables but the syntax simplicity can't be beat:

Proc freq data=mydata; run;

I know I'm going to get lots, but I get to see values, labels if assigned, how many missing values for each variable (VERY helpful if there shouldn't be any for one or more variables). And sometimes just plain data entry stupidity ( or a system induced behavior that assigned many supposedly poor clients with monthly incomes of 83333).

Verify that I have all values of a variable considered when designing a custom format.