topic Re: SAS 9.2 to SAS 9.4 migration in SAS Programming

SAS 9.2 to SAS 9.4 migration

mnjtrana — Thu, 06 Feb 2020 10:01:15 GMT

Hi All,

One of our client is moving from SAS 9.2(LINUX) to SAS 9.4 version on a new Linux server. The software will be upgraded by the SAS Admins along with the necessary configurations. However we would also need to migrate the SAS codes to the new server.

Apart from the library and new sources changes, We wanted to know if we need to do any changes to the codes. I mean i know SAS 9.4 is backward compatible, but are these things which we can change to make the code more efficient.

Thanks in advance.
Manjeet

Re: SAS 9.2 to SAS 9.4 migration

Kurt_Bremser — Thu, 06 Feb 2020 10:21:55 GMT

SAS 9.4 is more picky when you combine datasets where a variable has different lengths.

data tab_a;
length date 4;
date = today();
run;

data tab_b;
date = today() + 1;
run;

data tab_c;
set
  tab_a
  tab_b
;
run;

would have given you a NOTE in 9.2, but will give you a WARNING in 9.4.

Re: SAS 9.2 to SAS 9.4 migration

ballardw — Thu, 06 Feb 2020 16:18:57 GMT

A warning with anything using SAS Catalogs for storage, such as Formats. Make sure that you have code to recreate any of the catalogs, especially if you are going from a 32 bit 9.2 installation.

Re: SAS 9.2 to SAS 9.4 migration

SASKiwi — Thu, 06 Feb 2020 20:47:16 GMT

All important SAS programs should be retested in SAS 9.4. That is the only way to ensure they work correctly. I would also recommend comparing key output SAS datasets to ensure you get the same results. PROC COMPARE can do this.