topic Problem with sas batch mode in SAS Programming

Problem with sas batch mode

makset7 — Wed, 14 Mar 2018 21:58:23 GMT

Hello.
I have the following problem with sas batch mode:

During program execution in batch mode if there is any error the rest of the program is not executed.

There is an option or trick to make the rest of the program executed.

Thank you very much for all your help

Re: Problem with sas batch mode

ChrisNZ — Wed, 14 Mar 2018 22:35:10 GMT

Look at these options

NOERRORABEND Does not end SAS for most errors, issues an error message, sets OBS=0, and goes into syntax check mode.
NOERRORBYABEND Does not end a SAS program when an error occurs in BY-group processing, issues an error, and continues
processing.

I question why you would want this behaviour though.

Re: Problem with sas batch mode

Patrick — Tue, 11 Jan 2022 07:25:30 GMT

@makset7

I'd say that execution stops once an error has been encountered is a good thing. You'll enter into an undefined state after an error and if processing would continue then unexpected things could happen (i.e. overwriting a table with wrong data).

If you want some process to execute after program failure (i.e. sending out an email alert) then consider using a scheduler where you then check the return code of the process and in case of failure have the scheduler trigger another program which sends out the email (or whatever else you want to do).

Re: Problem with sas batch mode

dandar — Sun, 09 Jan 2022 15:56:52 GMT

I had this problem and will try the solutions stated here. However I often use by group processing fitting models on each level (bootstrapping). These often fail in low sample sizes/events and I do wish to simply "run on". Interactive SAS does this but batch does not by default it seems. So I am comfortable with these errors (I capture convergence diagnostics from the sas procedure and filter out non-converging models later). It is best to do a try/catch I suppose but I do not know how, and anyway seems pointless since the base procedure is very happy to just "run on".

Re: Problem with sas batch mode

SASKiwi — Sun, 09 Jan 2022 19:36:11 GMT

@dandar - Most likely it is the SAS system option SYNTAXCHECK you are encountering as it is switched on by default in batch mode. You can put this in a SAS OPTIONS statements to test if it gives you the behaviour you want. In your case you would use: OPTIONS NOSYNTAXCECK;

Re: Problem with sas batch mode

dandar — Sun, 09 Jan 2022 22:34:01 GMT

Thank you so much, I will give this a try. I thought I was going mad: interactive mode runs fine (with multiple by-processing errors) but batch mode fails. I'll report back.