What is the difference between sas 9.3 and 9.4

[muyco_didie]

Hi. I just started at a new company as an intern. I am currently preparing for my base 9 certification.

I just wanted to ask what is the difference between SAS 9.3 and SAS 9.4?

[Kurt_Bremser]

Consult the "What's new" pages in the SAS documentation:

https://documentation.sas.com/?cdcId=pgmsascdc&cdcVersion=9.4_3.4&docsetId=basewn&docsetTarget=n0aox...

https://documentation.sas.com/?cdcId=pgmsascdc&cdcVersion=9.4_3.4&docsetId=whatsnew&docsetTarget=tit...

[LinusH]

-0.1?

[RW9]

Exactly what I was going to post!

@muyco_didie:  There are a fair few differences between the two versions, however nothing major in terms of basic SAS use though.  

[FreelanceReinh · Accepted solution]

Hi @muyco_didie (and welcome to the SAS Support Communities!),

The "What's new" documentation (see links provided by Kurt Bremser) can be quite daunting, even for experienced SAS programmers. It contains many items that you are unlikely to use in your entire career.

Let me pick a few items (in arbitrary order) which I personally find useful to know:

• The official return of the DELETE procedure
• The existence of the new DS2 and FedSQL procedures*
• PROC REPORT: NOWD option is now the default.
• REGEXP option of the INVALUE statement of PROC FORMAT
• System option LRECL: 32767 is the new default (was 256 before).
• DO_OVER method of the SAS hash object
• KEYRESET= option of the SET statement
• DOSUBL function
• RAND function: new INTEGER distribution (not in early 9.4 releases) and additional arguments for the UNIFORM distribution.

* Even if you don't use these procedures, you need to be more careful nowadays when searching keywords in the SAS documentation (online or offline): Often you get additional links for a Base SAS keyword to the DS2, FedSQL and other documentation and can be easily confused if you click the wrong link.

Good luck for your internship and the certification!

@LinusH wrote:
-0.1?

@LinusH: Not exactly, though. 😉

1    data _null_;
2    if 9.3-9.4 ne -0.1 then put 'Surprise!';
3    run;

Surprise!
NOTE: DATA statement used (Total process time):

[LinusH]

...sigh...this is tiny bit of SAS that I haven't really came to terms with, since:

32         data _null_;
33         a = 9.3 - 9.4;
34         if a ne 0.1 then put "WTF";
35         put a;
36         run;

WTF
-0.1

Really...but this a separate subject I guess