Running and Debugging SAS code

• Integration: execute a SAS program and view the results without leaving the editor
• Debugging: tools help programmers separate the wheat from the chaff in SAS logs
  • Subset the log: hide all but specific line types of the log
  • Synchronize source and log: hop between log file errors and the source line that created them

SAS Integration

Executing a Program in SAS

You can run your SAS program (Sans JCL of course) from within Multi-Edit. You must have SAS installed on your PC of course! Press F3 , use the "running man" button on the SAS toolbar, or select Run SAS from the context sensitive menu. Your program runs in the background and the results (log and output) display in new edit windows. You can use Change SAS Directory selection on the context sensitive menu to hop between different release levels of SAS if you have multiple installations.

Log and Output file names

The log and output file names are created by combining the path and filename of the source code file and replaces the SAS extension with log or out. Both the log and output file are overwritten upon subsequent runs of the same program. If you need to compare logs from multiple runs use the log backup tool.

Automatic log clean up

Since Multi-Edit is used with a screen, not a Teletype, the log files are cleaned up. Notably, multiple occurrences of the same line (like printing an error number 3 times) are reduced to one line. Multiple blank lines are also reduced. Error messages with numbers are moved up to just after the line that generated the error. In the example below you can see that the textual error message is listed below the error column marker instead of being 30 lines later.

4            w=.;
              _
              200
ERROR 200-322: The symbol is not recognized.

Back to top

Debugging

Sub-setting the Log

When you view the log, your context sensitive menu changes. It now has entries to Show Only certain types of lines from the log. This selection displays a sub-menu with entries that indicate what type of lines are not hidden. The descriptions of what is not hidden are listed below. These functions are also accessed through the LOG toolbar. The toolbar buttons have Shortened versions of the menu item names. Turn Off is the Clear button, Unintended Conversions is the Conv button.

Using a Subset Log

Now that you have reduced the lines shown in the log to some subset of the whole log, what can you do? Notice there are small buttons with a plus sign on the far left of the lines that are visible. You can click on a button and the hidden lines below the button are shown down to the next non-hidden line. At this point the button changes to a minus sign. Clicking this button will re-hides the exposed lines.

The context sensitive menu has an selection to Toggle Show Only off and on. This can also be accomplished from the On Off button on the LOG toolbar. When you use this option your cursor remains on the line that it was on (and so does your view). But all the hidden lines are shown. This does not alter the position of the line in the edit window.

Synchronizing Source and Log

While viewing the log, you can put your cursor on any source code line and jump to that line in the code file. If the file is not open in an edit window then it opens. This function only works with source code lines in the log file. You invoke this function by selecting Hop to Source Line in the LOG context menu, or press the Go To button on the LOG toolbar.

Back to top

Jump to: Editing features, Templates, SAS Integration and Debugging and Smart Code. Or, look at the EZRTools;) manual.

Download a trial copy of EZRTools;)

Download a trial version of Multi-Edit.