You're more than welcome.Good discussion. And, I just updated that example notebook a little, I added a few newer methods showing some other neat features. saspy is constantly being extended, so there's always more to learn 🙂   Thanks! Tom ... View more

Ah, reading your response to mine, I think I understand a little better what you were getting at regarding Python benefiting SAS. With your reference to sas-esppy, I think that most of what I was saying was in that same vain; SAS benefitting python. I would say saspy is very similar in that regard; allowing Python programs to leverage the SAS backend: SAS benefitting Python. I’m a little less clear on a couple statements about Python benefiting SAS. I not sure that my response didn’t confuse that. These two, I’m not 100% sure on: using SAS methods in Python to develop SAS, Python uses the results […] to modify the framework of SAS software   Let me state a few things differently and see if that changes what you’re thinking. All of the various parts of SAS I’ve developed are written in C (or assembler, way back when). I haven’t actually developed any SAS components (themselves) written in Python. That being said, I’ve researched, prototyped and/or productionized a variety of SAS components which interact with Python in recent years. Both Python interacting w/ SAS and SAS interacting with Python. In these cases, the actual SAS parts of these are still written in C. Where I think I can answer your Python benefiting SAS is maybe with the following.   I have used Python itself to quickly prototype ‘proof of concept’s for some of these various Python/SAS interactions. The parts which would be the SAS components, that would eventually be written in C, I could use Python to show the POC or to quickly prove or disprove my design ideas, whereas having to actually implement the C code and interfaces to Python just to prove the concept would take significantly longer.   One of the other things I find that I like about Python is the OS level interfaces. For a ‘high level language’ it has ‘low level’ interfaces. That’s where I can actually use it to prototype parts that will eventually be written in C. I can prove out concepts with Process control, Inter process communication, I/O, and other low level concepts which take much more time to develop in C than in Python. But anything I can code in Python, I know I can accomplish in C; it just takes longer to write. So, in that way I think I can answer your question about how Python benefits SAS.   Does that make more sense with regard to the question you are asking about the benefits? Hopefully I’m now on the same page as you. But, let me know! This is an interesting discussion.   Thanks, Tom ... View more

Well, I can try to elaborate on that aspect, though I’m sure I won’t do it complete justice.   From a mechanical point of view, the intersection is that the saspy module has 4 types of python objects, each with an appropriate sets of methods to let you connect to SAS, access SAS data, perform SAS analytics and access the tables, charts, plots, graphs,… that SAS produces from the various analytic and base procedures. All of this is with simple, pure Python syntax. The other part of this intersection is the ability to move data and variables between Python and SAS, as necessary. The default case is that there is no data movement between the two. Data being analyzed or queried, or viewed, stays in SAS. Only the results of what you do are returned to Python. However, the ability to move data between SAS Data Sets and Pandas Data Frames (either direction), as well as Python variables and SAS Marco Variables (again, both directions) is available with simple methods.   As to the benefit, that’s less tangible, but nonetheless exists. From my time working with Python, I’ve been very impressed with the speed and ease with which I can accomplish my programming tasks. Sure, I prefer 370 Assembler (Mainframe) to other languages, and I’ve mostly written in C for a long time, but I can whip out a dozen lines of Python to prototype something that would take me 20 times as long to do in C. So what about the SAS language, well I find it similar, because I’m not a SAS programmer. I write SAS. That’s what I program, not program ‘in’.  Calling a simple saspy method to do something complicated in SAS, where the SAS code required to accomplish that is much more than a single line of code, is more convenient for me.   So, Python is a ubiquitous language that is extremely easy to use and highly functional. It isn’t designed, however, to do what SAS does. Referring to the highlighted works in your post; back-end, heavy data lifting, performance. The SAS system is built to be all of those and more. It is the production backbone of many businesses. So, Python being Python, and SAS being SAS, I think that a seamless integration between the two makes clear sense in many applications and, to also quote the post, ‘ form a good complementary pair’.   Rapid development of business logic processes with the python language, leveraging the highly performant data processing and analytic production back end of SAS, makes for a pretty compelling picture in my head. Of course, this is nothing more than my opinion.   Oh, and as to the question about needing SAS to run saspy, as others have already mentioned, yes, you need SAS, but it doesn’t have to be installed on the same machine as saspy (it can be). SAS can be accessed remotely, which again, speaks to the aspect of it being a production backend server.   I’m sure this doesn’t completely answer your question, but I hope it helps continue the discussion 😊   Thanks, Tom     ... View more