| SAS Companion for the CMS Environment |
As you use SAS in a CMS environment, you may encounter
many different kinds of problems. The problem may actually be with some component
of the operating environment or with computer resources other than SAS. The
problem may also be caused by operating environment commands being executed
or used incorrectly.
If the problem is operating-system dependent, you will
receive messages on the terminal screen. You may need to consult an appropriate
IBM manual or your onsite systems staff to actually determine the problem
and how to solve it. Much error message information can be found in the CMS
HELP system. For example, if you get an DMSSCT120S error on your terminal,
key in HELP DMS120S and you will see an explanation as well as a list of possible
causes of the error. Consult the appropriate system manual to determine the
source of the problem.
Several resources are available to help you if you determine
that your problem is within SAS. These resources are discussed in the following
sections.
The primary source of information for
solving problems that occur within SAS is the SAS log. The log lists the
SAS source statements along with notes about each step, warning messages,
and error messages. Errors are flagged in the code, and a numbered error message
is printed in the log. It is often easy to find the incorrect step or statement
just by glancing at the SAS log.
Sometimes information in the SAS log enables
you to identify the source of the problem, but you cannot resolve the problem
based on that information. In that case, the next step may be to read the
documentation for the particular topic.
In the windowing environment, extensive
help is available through the online help facility. For host-specific features,
issue the PMENU command as needed to display SAS menus, then select:
| Help |
![[arrow]](../common/images/arrow.gif) |
SAS System Help |
|
Using SAS
With Your Operating Environment |
Then select help topics
of interest at increasing levels of detail.
In the HELP BROWSER window, use (by default) the F17
and F18 keys to move to the previous and next help windows, respectively.
Use the F19 and F20 keys to scroll up and down through help files that exceed
the length of the SAS help window.
Your site may provide user-defined help
that provides
site-specific information via the standard SAS help browser. To access user-defined
help via the SAS help browser, you need to allocate a user-defined help library
at SAS invocation.
The user-defined help library contains help information in the form of one
or more itemstores, which utilize a file format that allows SAS
to treat the itemstore as a file system within a file. Each itemstore can
contain directories, subdirectories, and individual help topics.
For information on loading user-defined help into itemstores,
refer to the next section and to ITEMS.
You can develop help for your
site or for your
SAS programs that can be displayed in the standard SAS help browser. To ensure
that your the user-defined help will be displayed as it is written, use only
the subset of tags from HTML Version 3.2 that are supported on the SAS help
browser. Help information in tags that are not supported by the SAS help browser
may be ignored by the SAS help browser.
HTML Tags Supported by the SAS Help Browser
describes the HTML tags supported by the SAS help browser. To summarize the
contents of the table, the TABLE tag is the only frequently used tag that
is not supported at this time. To add tables to your help, use the PRE tag
and format the text manually using blank spaces, vertical bars, dashes, and
underscores as needed.
For information on loading your help into itemstores,
see ITEMS.
HTML Tags Supported by the SAS Help Browser
|
Tag Type |
Tag Names |
Description |
|
heading |
H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, H6 |
for hierarchical section headings |
|
paragraph |
P |
for text in the body of a
help file |
|
list |
UL, OL, DIR, MENU |
for unordered ("bullet") lists, ordered (numbered) lists,
directory (unordered, no bullets) lists, and menu (unordered) lists |
|
definition list |
DL, DT, DD |
for definition list, title of item and definition of item |
|
preformatted text |
PRE,
XMP, LISTING |
for tables, which must be manually formatted with blank spaces |
|
font specification |
I, B,
U |
For
italic, bold, and underlined text |
|
phrase |
EM, STRONG, DFN, CODE, SAMP, KBD, VAR,
CITE |
for emphasis, strong emphasis, definitions, code examples, code samples, keyboard
key names, variables, citations |
|
link |
A, LINK |
for anchors and the links that reference
those anchors |
|
document |
TITLE, BASE, HEAD, HTML |
for titles in the browser, base URLs, heading
sections at the top of a page |
For information on the options available for these tags,
see any reference for HTML Version 3.2.
The CD-ROM that is supplied with SAS software contains most of the documentation
for base SAS, including
SAS Language Reference: Dictionary and other titles. If you encounter a problem
that cannot be solved based on the information provided in the SAS log or
in SAS online help, load the CD-ROM disk into a CD-ROM reader and browse through
the contents of the books contained therein.
Contact your SAS Support Representative for assistance with
ordering hardcopy documentation.
The DATA step debugger is an interactive
tool that helps you find logic errors, and sometimes data errors, in SAS DATA
steps. By issuing commands, you can execute DATA step statements one by one
or in groups, pausing at any point to display the resulting variable values
in a window. You can also bypass the execution of one or more statements.
For complete information about the DATA step debugger,
see
SAS Language Reference: Dictionary.
If you are having a problem with the logic
of your program, there might be no error messages or warning messages to help
you. You might not get the results or output that you expect. Using the
PUT statement to write messages to the SAS log or to dump the values of all
or some of your variables might help. Using PUT statements enables you to
follow the flow of the problem and to see what is going on at strategic places
in your program.
Some problems may be data related; these can be very
hard to trace. Notes that appear in the SAS log following the step that reads
and manipulates the data might be very helpful. These notes provide information
such as the number of variables and observations that were created. You can
also use the CONTENTS and PRINT procedures to look at the data definitions
as SAS recorded them or to actually look at all or parts of the data in question.
During execution, when SAS cannot acquire sufficient
memory or disk space to perform the executable tasks, SAS uses a requestor
window or a requestor prompt to ask you how you want to handle the situation.
The requestor window displays a list of alternatives from which you are allowed
to select an item to be released. The requestor window redisplays until sufficient
resources have been released to allow execution to continue. Alternatively,
you can select
Continuous cleanup or
Do nothing.
The following list explains the choices
given in the requestor window plus some other possible selections.
-
Be prompted to delete files from SAS libraries
-
allows you to select which SAS files
to delete.
-
Clean up everything
-
invokes every item shown in the requestor
window. This selection applies only for the current resource request.
-
Clear LOG window
-
erases the contents of the LOG window.
-
Clear OUTPUT window
-
erases the contents of the OUTPUT
window.
-
Clear paste buffers
-
deletes what is saved in the paste
buffers.
-
Clear PROGRAM EDITOR window
-
erases the contents of the PROGRAM
EDITOR window.
-
Clear source spooling/DMS recall buffers
-
erases the recall buffers.
-
Continuous cleanup
-
tells SAS to perform automatic continuous
cleanup. The SAS System will perform cleanup as much as possible and subsequently
not display the requestor window for an out-of-memory condition. This selection
applies for the remainder of the SAS session. If you would like SAS to always
perform automatic continuous cleanup, specify the CLEANUP system option when
you invoke SAS.
-
Deassign inactive librefs
-
allows you to select which librefs
to deassign.
-
Delete definitions of all SAS macros and macro
variables
-
deletes all macro definitions and
variables.
-
Do nothing
-
tells SAS to do nothing and allow
the resource request to fail. This selection applies only for the current
resource request.
You can select this option at any time. If you have
tried all the other selections and still cannot recover enough resources,
you should select this option or the 'Continuous cleanup' option.
-
Execute X command
-
puts your SAS session into CMS subset
mode. This enables you to erase files to free up disk space or release accessed
disks to make more memory available. Be careful not to erase temporary SAS
files.
-
Free windows
-
removes enough windows to get enough
space to continue.
-
Halt data step/proc
-
tells SAS to stop the current step.
-
More items to cleanup
-
means that there are more items to
cleanup than can be displayed in this window. Choose this selection to see
the additional list.
-
Terminate SAS
-
aborts SAS. SAS files that are currently
being modified are marked as damaged. The next time you use the file, you
receive a message that SAS is recovering as much data as possible from the
file.
A requestor window always displays for a disk-full condition
during an interactive session.
If your cleanup selection does not satisfy the immediate
need, a second message is displayed in the requestor window:
NOT ENOUGH resource WAS CLEANED UP. PLEASE TRY AGAIN.
To determine whether sufficient resources can be recovered
so that SAS can continue in a normal fashion, select 'Clean up everything'.
If the requestor window returns the TRY AGAIN message, the situation is much
more serious. If you have other files that can be erased to free disk space
or disks that can be released to make more memory available, select the 'Execute
X command' item.
- CAUTION:
- Be careful not to erase temporary SAS
files.
![[cautend]](../common/images/cautend.gif)
If this last step doesn't work, you must tell SAS to
give up by selecting the 'Do nothing' or 'Continuous cleanup' item.
From the requestor window you can stop execution of
SAS by selecting the 'Terminate SAS' item.
- CAUTION:
- This method
of stopping SAS may cause a SAS file to lose the data that was last added
or modified.
The default value for the CLEANUP system
option is CLEANUP. When CLEANUP is in effect, SAS does automatic continuous
cleanup, and you are shown a requestor window or a requestor prompt only for
a disk-full condition.
The NOCLEANUP option will display requestor windows
during resource constrained situations if there is a terminal attached. However,
the requestor windows do not display while SAS is running in a CMS batch machine
or a disconnected virtual machine. When a resource-critical situation arises,
SAS performs automatic continuous cleanup. If insufficient resources are
recovered, SAS responds as if you had specified the CLEANUP system option.
Copyright © 1999 by SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, USA. All rights reserved.
