Subject: UPPER and lower case SAS code processing times

Hi friends,

For some time already, I can't say from which explicit example, I have the impression that the SAS code compiler, while treating UPPER and lower case code equally, has a little more trouble to process lower case code. Maybe it firstly converts it to UPPER case before processing further. In order to test this hypotheses explicitly I built a test program which runs a piece of (dummy) SAS code all in lower case and an identical piece all in UPPER case. The program also keeps track of processing times of each of the parts of the code, which is being repeated a number of times. Those processing times are being gathered into a SAS dataset and finally a T-test is performed on both case groups. In more than 1 out of 4 times I get significantly differing results.

If you would like to reproduce these amazing results you may run my test program, which is available as
UPRfoLWR.sas

Regards - Jim.
--
Y. (Jim) Groeneveld, MSc., Biostatistician, Vitatron b.v., NL
Jim.Groeneveld_AT_Vitatron.com (replace _AT_ by AT sign)
http://www.vitatron.com, http://home.hccnet.nl/jim.groeneveld

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