Description: SAS is a general purpose,
commercial statistical package and high level data management programming
language from the SAS Institute,
Cary, NC. With many capabilities beyond statistical, SAS is widely used
in academia and industry.
Availability: UNIX version
8.2 on compute servers paradigm and charisma. Version
6.12 is also available on server charisma. Windows version 8.2
is on selected PCs connected to the departmental LAN.
Documentation: SAS Version 8 documentation
from Duke IPs is available online in two formats:
Bob Jackson consults on SAS programming questions and maintains an
extensive collection of SAS manuals which may be consulted as needed.
Personal copies of manuals may be purchased from the Gothic Book Shop
or directly from the SAS Institute Publications (800-727-3228). Detailed
introductory SAS notes for UNIX or Windows are available from Bob Jackson.
Additional Help and Information:
The SAS page
of the Social Sciences Computing site has pointers to additional
web resources.
Modes of Usage Under UNIX: SAS
may be run in interactive or batch mode. Interactive mode
requires that you be logged into the UNIX system via an SSH terminal
program and that you have a PC X-server program loaded such as X-Win32.
To invoke interactive SAS 8.2, change to the directory in which
you wish to work and, at the UNIX prompt, type:
xsas &
This will load an iconified x-terminal window from which SAS launches.
This method of invoking SAS 8.2 circumvents a flaw in the interaction
of SAS 8 releases with the X-Win32 PC X-server. A bug in X-Win32 that
causes this may eventually be corrected.
The amperand (&) causes the UNIX prompt to remain available in the
window from which SAS was invoked. Four display windows appear. The
"Program Editor" window is used for program editing and submission.
The "Log" window displays listings of executed programs with associated
notes, warnings and error messages. The "Output" window displays output
from SAS reporting procedures. The "Toolbox" window provides a set of
icons used as shortcuts for performing certain "Program Editor" functions.
To load interactive SAS 6.12 change to your working directory
and type:
sas6 &
NOTE: SAS 6.12 is a deprecated
version which is available as a convenience. SAS system files created
on server charisma under version 6.12 are not usable on server paradigm
or portable to Windows SAS. All existing 6.12 system files should be
upgraded to version 8 format, which allows cross-platform portability.
This can be done by accessing version 8.2 on charisma and saving in
version 8 format or by using the DBMS/Copy file transfer utility to
convert to version 8 format.
When printing from the log or output windows of SAS 8.2, select File
| Print. This will open the following print dialog box.
Click the Use Forms box in the upper, left corner. The box will
morph as follows:
You will see that form printing has been pre-defined for standard,
2-up printing with the enscript facility. Note, in the second box of
this dialog, that the default printer is set to copy2. If you
prefer an alternative printer, just change it to clus or copy3.
Click OK to print. After you have selected forms printing once, SAS
will default to this mode and always display the second screen immediately.
Under UNIX, many prefer to run SAS in batch mode. Batch submission entails
loading SAS from the command line along with a SAS program. SAS executes
the program in the background and writes the results to separate files
without bringing up any windows. This is quite convenient if you are logged
in from home over a connection which does not provide for X-windowed displays.
It is also possible to submit long-running batch jobs, logoff and login
later to check their status.To run a SAS program in batch requires that
you have previously written the program and saved it in a text file.
Assuming the existence of a program called "recodes.sas", one would
run the program in SAS 8.2 by typing at the UNIX prompt:
sas recodes.sas &
To run the same program is SAS 6.12 type:
sas6 recodes.sas &
SAS executes the program in the background and writes in the current
directory corresponding log and output files named in tandum with the
program file. In this example the files would be called "recodes.log"
and "recodes.lst". UNIX SAS batch output is typically printed with the
enscript command, as in the example below which prints the output
files to the Copy Room printer:
enscript -2r recodes.log recodes.lst
Licensing for Personal Use: Annual
SAS for Windows licenses may be obtained from the OIT
Site License Office for use on personally owned laptop or desktop
PCs. The licensing fee is $35 per year plus the cost of installation
CDs ($15). Licenses expire at the end January, with a 90 day grace period
following expiration. Users wishing to avoid media costs may borrow
installation CDs from Bob Jackson with proof of license purchase.
SAS