topic Re: PROC SQL - EXPLAIN option? in SAS Programming

PROC SQL - EXPLAIN option?

DerekD_WF — Tue, 03 May 2011 19:25:56 GMT

I read an article recently (couldn't locate the date it was published) that said there was an EXPLAIN option that could be used with PROC SQL to print a summary of the methods used to evaluate the query to the SAS log.

However, it said that this was still in development. I am not able to find any information for the syntax in the Help or by doing internet searches. Anyone have information on this?

Re: PROC SQL - EXPLAIN option?

art297 — Tue, 03 May 2011 20:27:22 GMT

Derek,

It was an undocumented feature and is "explained" in the following document:
http:\\support.sas.com/techsup/technote/ts320.html. The document doesn't appear to have a date on it, but my guess would be that it is from around 1995 or so.

Maybe we can get the author (Paul Kent) to let us know what happened to it, as well as some of the other undocumented options like _method and _tree.

Art

Re: PROC SQL - EXPLAIN option?

Paul_Kent_SAS — Tue, 03 May 2011 22:26:30 GMT

As far as i know, explain is still a work in progress. There are two less polished options out there; documented as best i know in these two resources...

a SUGI paper of mine, from quite a while ago:
http://support.sas.com/techsup/technote/ts553.html

a user written paper (that was really really well researched!):
http://www2.sas.com/proceedings/sugi30/101-30.pdf

paul

Re: PROC SQL - EXPLAIN option?

DerekD_WF — Thu, 05 May 2011 14:22:23 GMT

Thanks for the references Paul!