SAS^® IML

A powerful, flexible matrix programming language for interactive and exploratory data analysis

SAS IML

Easily translate mathematical formulas into innovative programs for matrix computations, numerical analysis, optimization, simulation, statistics and data analysis.

Program easily & efficiently

Simple syntax and an extensive function library make it easy to translate mathematical formulas into statistical programming statements. You can implement custom analyses for a variety of applications and even build your own module library. Share your programs and libraries by writing packages, and download programs written by others.
Interactively perform exploratory analysis

Graphically explore data to spot hidden patterns, uncover relationships among variables, understand outliers and identify unusual features in the data. Dynamically linked graphics enable you to select observations in one graph and see those same observations highlighted in all other views of the data.
Run optimizations & simulations

Find optimum values for objective functions, subject to constraints. Simulate data, solve linear systems and perform matrix computations. And there's no need to declare or allocate storage for a data matrix, because SAS IML software does this automatically.

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Key features

Understand relationships in complex data using exploratory data analysis. SAS IML software includes hundreds of functions for implementing specialized analyses and algorithms, with the ability to code from open source languages.

High-level programming language

Lets you take a programming approach to matrix-oriented operations and analysis.

Accessible, cloud-enabled in-memory engine

Uses the SAS Viya platform, providing high availability, fast in-memory processing, the ability to code from open source languages and native cloud support.

Matrix computations

Supports matrix operations, solving linear systems and matrix decompositions.

Numerical analysis

Includes built-in functions for numerical linear algebra, root-finding algorithms, integrals and derivatives, differential equations and interpolation.

Optimization

Enables linear programming and mixed-integer linear programming.

Simulation

Lets you simulate from dozens of built-in distributions – including univariate, multivariate and time series models – and program custom simulations, including regression and spatial models.