TOPIC: SCANDINAVIAN AIRLINES
A throwback to the past: an appearance of MACROGEN
4th October 2007
Recently, I was reviewing a log of a program being run by SAS 9.1.3 on a Solaris system and spotted lines like the following:
MACROGEN(MACRO1): OPTIONS NOMPRINT NOMPRINTNEST
NOTE: PROCEDURE DISPLAY used (Total process time):
real time 0.73 seconds
cpu time 0.50 seconds
MPRINT(MACRO1): SOURCE SOURCE2 NOTES;
The appearance of the word MACROGEN made me wonder if there was another system option that I had missed. A quick search of the SAS website threw up a support note that shed some light on the situation. Apparently, MACROGEN is the SAS v5 forbear of today's MPRINT, MLOGIC, and SYMBOLGEN options and would seem to be obsolete in these days. Having started programming SAS in the days of version 6, I had missed out on MACROGEN and so used its replacements instead, hence my never coming across the option. Quite what it's doing showing up in a SAS 9 log is another story: and there I was thinking that SAS 9 was the result of a full rewrite... Now, I am not so sure, but at least I know what MACROGEN is if someone ever takes the time to ask me.
Porting SAS files to other platforms and versions
1st October 2007
SAS uses its transport file format to port files between operating and, where the need arises, different software versions. As with many things, there is more than one method to create these transport files: PROC CPORT/CIMPORT and PROC COPY with the XPORT engine. The former method is for within version transfer of SAS files between different operating systems (UNIX to Windows, for instance) and the latter is for cross-version transfer (SAS9 to SAS 8, for example). SAS Institute has a page devoted to this subject which may share more details.
SAS Institute enters the blogosphere
19th September 2007
To get to the blogs hosted by SAS Institute, all you need to do is go here. I have to say that there is quite a spread of subject matter ranging from the high-level business strategy offerings through to detailed snippets for SAS programmers. There appears to be a lot here for anyone interested in SAS and business intelligence. I must take a longer look.
Update: I have since discovered a central listing of SAS Institute RSS feeds. The list is well worth your perusal.
Using alternative editors for SAS programming
5th June 2007
When it comes to writing SAS programs, most use the tools that SAS gives us, be it Enterprise Guide, the Enhanced Editor or the Program Editor. While Enterprise Guide can work with UNIX SAS as the processing engine, it is very much a Windows tool and the Enhanced Editor functionality is provided through Windows-only programming (ActiveX, I seem to recall). However, that means that creature comforts are left behind you if you turn to writing SAS code using UNIX SAS; you have only got the good old-fashioned Program Editor supplied by SAS itself. However, there is a trick that you can use to make life more comfortable: SAS does allow you to submit the contents of your paste buffer (or clipboard) using the command SUBMIT BUFFER=DEFAULT and this can be assigned to a function key for ease of use (I use the same key to clear the log and output screens at the same time). In the Windows, you may need to explicitly copy the code to do this but, in UNIX, merely highlighting a section of code with an editor like NEdit will do the trick and, given that NEdit is reasonably pleasant tool for code cutting (the ability to define its macros with a spot of scripting is a definite plus point), this makes life more comfortable again.