Jennifer Price - Independent Consultant INTRODUCTION: There are several features in SAS that can be used to organize your SAS session before it begins. This paper will examine how this can be done using AUTOEXEC.SAS. One of the features of AUTOEXEC.SAS is that it can be customized for different projects. For example, most projects have a unique libname, format library and macro library. You may have standard libnames, formats and macro libraries as well. These can all be set up using AUTOEXEC.SAS. The SAS AUTOEXEC.SAS is an external file located in the same physical location as SAS.EXE. It is run when SAS is executed. The solution I found to organize my sessions by project is the following: Each project has a libname that is unique to that project. This libname is used by all programmers and in all programs related to that project. Each project has a format library. Each programmer adds the formats they need to a single library that is then accessed by all programmers on the project. Each project has a macro library in addition to the standard macro library used in all projects My AUTOEXEC.SAS lists all the libnames for the different projects, and defines the format library and the macro library for the project that I am currently working on. There is a solution for working on multiple projects that is noted late in the paper.
libname project1 c:\project1\sasdata;
libname project2 c:\project2\sasdata; By putting the LIBNAME statement in the AUTOEXEC.SAS, we dont need to have a libname statement in each program. This is especially helpful when working at multiple locations where the path names are different. In one location I may define the libname project1 as: c:\my_documents\work\project1\sasdata; and at another it might be defined as t:\project1\sasdata;. By defining all of the libnames in the AUTOEXEC.SAS instead of individual programs, you can run programs from different locations (i.e. home or work). Since all programs refer to the datasets as PROJECT1.DSETNAME, they all find the data they need without modifying the program. options macautosource sasautos = (c:\project1\sasmacro c:\library\macros); The MAUTOSOURCE option causes the macro processor to search the autocall libraries for a member with the requested name when a macro name is not found in the work library. The SASAUTOS= option tells SAS where to search for autocall macro libraries. When two or more autocall macro libraries are specified, SAS searches each location in the same order that is specified in the SASAUTOS option. If there are two or more locations that contain macro libraries, they are enclosed in parenthesis, and separated by either a comma or blank space.
proc format library=library; This LIBRARY libname is a reserved SAS libname that tells programs where the FORMAT library is located. This is helpful when using projects that have different formats associated with them. By using this statement, I dont have to run the program that creates the formats prior to running the program that uses the formats. For each project I have a program that I call FORMAT.SAS that has all of the formats for that project. I need to run this once to create the FORMAT.SC2 catalog in the data library. The PROC FORMAT option must have the following syntax: PROC FORMAT LIBRARY=LIBRARY;
Example of a PROC FORMAT using the LIBRARY
option: The LIBRARY=LIBRARY option tells SAS to save the output as a permanent SAS catalog. By using this method, the PROC FORMAT only needs to be run once, then the library will be available to all SAS sessions using the PROC FORMAT LIBRARY=LIBRARY statement (above). The PAGE option prints the output of the format. PROC FORMAT LIBRARY=LIBRARY PAGE; value yesno 1=Yes 2=No 3=Unknown 4=N/A .=-; value $sex
M=Male F=Female;
value $race
C=Caucasian B=Black H=Hispanic other=Other;
SOLUTION FOR MULTIPLE PROJECTS:
For multiple projects, set up your AUTOEXEC.SAS with all of your libnames, then put the remaining definitions for the particular project that you are working on in a different file (AUTOPJ2.SAS in this example). Use the AUTOEXEC= option to specify the location of the project specific file. If you are working on PROJECT2, the last line in your AUTOEXEC.SAS would appear as follows: AUTOEXEC=C:\PROJECT2\AUTOPJ2.SAS. OPTIONS: The following are some additional helpful options that can be used in the OPTIONS statement: MPRINT specifies whether SAS statements generated by macro execution are displayed SYMBOLGEN specifies whether the macro processor displays the result of resolving macro variable references. Example: OPTIONS AUTOEXEC=c:\project1\sasprog\proj1aut.sas MPRINT SYMBOLGEN; CONCLUSION: AUTOEXEC.SAS can be used to organize libname statements and format libraries, so that all programs using the same libnames can have data residing in different places, without recoding parts of the program.
References: SAS Language Reference, Version 6, 1ed 1990, SAS Institute, Inc., Cary, NC. SAS Macro Language: Reference, 1ed 1997, SAS Institute, Inc., Cary, NC.
TO CONTACT THE AUTHOR:
Jennifer Price Independent Consultant 13 Fairfield Drive Newark, DE 19711 Phone: 302.894.0577 email: [email protected]
