Using SASweave to Integrate SAS and R Code and Results in a Book

• Activity Number: 530
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Wednesday, August 5, 2009 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistical Computing
• Author(s): Ken Kleinman*+ and Nicholas Horton
• Companies: Harvard Medical School/Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and Smith College
• Keywords: Reproducible analysis ; statistical software ; instructional statistics

Abstract

In a reference volume for SAS and R software, we show numerous examples of each system. These applications demonstrate applications including data management, multitudinous model fits, graphics, and detailed complex applications. We needed to show that SAS and R would get identical or extremely similar results in each setting. We also needed examples which would help emphasize didactic points and include appropriate levels of complexity. These goals required numerous iterations through the examples. There are more than 80 pages of examples; had we tried to typeset them manually, completing the work would have taken years. Instead, with SASweave, we completed it in months. We provide examples of our use of SASweave for SAS and R jointly in both data analysis and graphics, and show how the work process was enabled by SASweave relative to hand-constructed book composition.