Description of Data Mining Functions

[IrinaN]

Hello. Is there documentation for functions used in SAS EM? For example,I found a function dmnorm in a SAS scoring code for which I can’t find a description in SAS Products documentation.

_normA=dmnorm(_fmtA,32);

Thank you.

Irina.

[DougWielenga · Accepted solution]

IrinaN,

The short answer is that there is not a catalog for functions that are (generally) only used in SAS Enterprise Miner since these would typically provide no benefit to the user, but if you have questions about what a particular function does, you can look at the code (as you have done) or inquire with SAS Technical Support.   

In this case, the DMNORM function you are mention is used for normalizing input field names and values to have no more than 32 characters in a the name and no more than 32 characters in the field. It uses the internal normalized version of the variable for analysis and in the score code it generates but you never would have need of these functions elsewhere.    The normalization in this situation is important because many data management applications/utilities export data with unnecessarily wide fields (e.g. 200+ characters for a Yes/No variable).  Since SAS Enterprise Miner is designed to generate score code and the entire potential width of the field must be stored just in case it is needed, this limit prevents the data from becoming unnecessarily large and it prevents the scorecode from becoming unnecessarily long as both of these will slow processing.   Even if your grouping variables have levels that do not differ prior to the first 32 characters, SAS Enterprise Miner will still keep them distinct but you will have to go back to the code in order to figure out which level each normalized level is assigned to.  This is why we recommend to make sure that you don't use unnecessarily long field names/values, but if you do then make sure they differ in the first 20-25 characters so they will be easily distinguished.  In general the DMNORM function handles all this but it is not a function that would typically be used directly by a user.   

I hope this helps!

Doug

[IrinaN]

Doug,

I  sometimes convert SAS scoring code to SQL, so I need fully understand the SAS scoring code.  Thank you so much for your answer!

Irina.