Customizing SAS

Like most statistical software, you can customize your SAS sessions for your particular work flow. There are generally two places you can put code to customize your SAS sessions: configuration files, and autoexec files.

  • Autoexec files enable you to run any SAS code, just as if it was the first part of your program, including most system settings.

  • Configuration files enable you to customize SAS system settings, the sorts of things you might specify with an OPTIONS statement or a command line option.

SAS uses configuration files as it first starts up, and then also uses an autoexec file if it finds one. Whatever is specified last is what has effect.

Tip

If you are not sure which to use, an autoexec file is probably the easiest to implement.

See the SAS documentation for more details.

Archive Your Customizations

Session customizations may save you a lot of typing and clutter in your code. However, they also have the potential to make your code less portable - if you move to a new computing platform, or someone else tries to use an archived version of your work, your customizations might be necessary to reproduce your results. Be sure to include them when you archive your work.

Autoexec Files

To set up code that you want to run at the beginning of every SAS session, put it in a file named autoexec.sas. Any code that is repeated at the top of every program file in a folder would be appropriate to put in an autoexec file. A typical use of an autoexec file would be to define LIBNAMEs that are shared across several programs files.

---- autoexec.sas ----
libname u "U:/dissertation/data";
libname x "X:/project";
options dmssynchk varinitchk=error;
----------------------

SAS searches for this file in several places - exactly where SAS will search is different on Linux versus Windows computers. On both platforms, the first place that SAS searches is the folder in which SAS starts, and the first autoexec file that SAS finds is the one that it uses.

Linstat

  • Using Linstat in batch mode, SAS first searches the folder where your program file is located.

  • Using SAS Studio on Linstat, SAS first searches your home folder, e.g. something of the form /home/h/hemken

    SAS Studio working directory

    SAS Studio on Linstat has a default working directory that you cannot write to. Changing the default working directory will make it simpler to write code that reads from or writes to text files.

    Use this form in an autoexec.sas file:

    ---- autoexec.sas ----
DATA _NULL_;
  RC=DLGCDIR('/home/h/hemken');
  RUN;
----------------------

Winstat

  • Launching files from the File Explorer on Winstat, SAS searches the folder where your program file is located.
  • Launching SAS from the Windows Start menu, SAS searches your “U:/” drive.

Configuration Files

Configuration files can only be used to set SAS system options. While most of these could be set in an autoexec file, there are a few settings that are best handled in a configuration file: redirecting the WORK library and memory settings can be specified only here or on the command line, and language settings are often easiest to set in this way.

SAS requires one or more configuration files to start up. The first configuration file should be a default SAS configuration file. The SSCC provides a second configuration that sets things like the memsize, cpucount, and the location of the work directory for each of our computing platforms. Any configuration file you set up should come third.

As with autoexec files, the details of where SAS searches for configuration files is different on Linux versus Windows.

Linstat

On Linstat, put your configuration options in a file named sasv9.cfg.

  • Using Linstat in batch mode, this file typically goes in the folder where your program file is located.
  • Using SAS Studio on Linstat, this goes in your home folder, e.g. something of the form /home/h/hemken
Warning

On Linstat, the sasv9.cfg file must have Unix LF line endings (not Windows CRLF). You can create this file on a Windows computer if you use software such as VS Code or Notepad++ that can change the line endings. (The bottom status bar in both programs has this option.)

Redirecting WORK

For example, if you routinely work with data files that are too big for the default WORK library, you might redirect the library to the /tmp folder, putting this file in your project folder:

---- sasv9.cfg ----
-WORK /tmp
-------------------

Use Another Language

If you wanted to work with data in a non-Western language (including UTF-8), or produce results in another language, your configuration file could call one of the many language configurations that SAS supplies. For example, to produce output in French, use:

---- sasv9.cfg ----
-CONFIG /software/sas/SASFoundation/9.4/nls/fr/sasv9.cfg
-------------------

Winstat

Setting up your own configuration file on Windows is a little trickier. SAS can use multiple -CONFIG options when launched from a command line, but most of us don’t work that way because it requires so much typing - see the example below.

The easiest approach is to make a new SAS launch program icon on your desktop, and modify the Target property as described in the documentation linked above. (Or, switch to a Linux computer!)

  • In the Windows Start menu, find the SAS 9.4 (English) icon. Right click, and on the context menu pick More > Open file location.

  • Copy the icon file to your Desktop.

  • Using the SAS icon you copied to your Desktop, right click, and select Properties

  • Edit the Target field (most of which is hidden from view at any given moment). Your modified Target should point to at least two CONFIG files: a default language file, and the SSCC configuration file. If you add your own file, it should be the third CONFIG option. (If you just want to change the language, you can use an alternative SAS language file as the first config file.)

    For example, to enable SAS to process data encoded in double-byte character sets, and also add your own sasv9.cfg configuration file, the Target would be (all on one line):

    "C:\Program Files\SASHome\SASFoundation\9.4\sas.exe"
  -CONFIG "C:\Program Files\SASHome\SASFoundation\9.4\nls\1d\sasv9.cfg"
  -config "C:\Program Files\SASHome\SASFoundation\9.4\sscc_sas.cfg"
  -config "U:/dissertation/sasv9.cfg"