SASWise
From sasCommunity
Welcome to the SAS blog from d-Wise Technologies, Inc. - SAS Alliance member company.
[edit] SAS Global Forum
[edit] Wednesday September 26, 2007 - DCREATE to the Rescue
Today I got to thinking about the SAS 9.2 release. While I am busy consulting around SAS 9.1.3, my friends in SAS R&D are working hard to complete SAS 9.2. It occurred to me that I would really be disappointed if 9.2 came out without taking care of one of my pet peeves: no mkdir function in base SAS! After talking with one of my R&D contacts, he surprised me (in an RTFM moment) by pointing out the DCREATE function.
What!?! Right there in the online doc? How did I miss that? A function in base SAS to create directories without the use of the X command has been there since SAS 9.1.3. After getting past my shock I am delighted to see this feature. Thank you SAS R&D! Thank you!
I guess I will have to start reading the What's new in SAS blah blah publications -- heh heh.
Aside: Some people reading this might be a little confused. Why get so excited about a mkdir function? Well, I can explain. Most of SAS 9 and most of the SAS solutions utilize the SAS workspace component. The SAS workspace is launched by the SAS Object Spawner which typically sets the -noxcmd option when SAS starts. This means that when you construct integration code inside a solution environment (or SAS BI, for that matter) you are likely to be prevented from using the X command for security reasons. The annoying end result of this is that I frequently have a difficult time creating directories on the Windows or Unix server. Several of my past projects included a design that requires dynamic directory creation on the server. Another reason I am excited about the DCREATE function is that it is going to make the mkdir code a lot cleaner. I never liked the look of the X command nor the spawning of a separate OS process just to create an empty folder!
[edit] Tuesday April 17, 2007 - SAS Global Forum
First day of the first SAS Global Forum! The technology session was good. I liked what the demo team presented. It included four different demo stations, each depicting a different part of a chocolate company. The integration of JMP with Stored Processes has real promise, IMO.
Scott Adams gave a hilarious talk chronicling his journey from the corporate world into cartoonist and workplace hero ;-). He showed several cartoons that he was not able to publish for a variety of reasons. Some of them were absolutely histerical.
I attended a hands-on workshop on the integration of SAS DI Studio and DataFlux. Sadly, the DataFlux part of it (the part I was really there for) was only in the last 15 minutes of the workshop.
