topic Re: A message to indicate where an error occurs? in SAS Programming

A message to indicate where an error occurs?

braam — Sun, 29 Mar 2020 20:29:57 GMT

I use %rq to stop SAS from running continuously when an error occurs. My master code file includes a couple of %include statements, which means that several SAS code files are involved in one-go.

%macro rq;
	; run; quit;
	%if &syserr. > 4 %then %do;
	%put "syserr= " &syserr.;
	 %abort cancel;
	%end;
	%mend rq;

I encountered two annoying issues.

1) When an error occurs (and SAS stops), I don't know in which SAS code file the program stopped. Can I add a couple of lines to let me know the file where the program encountered the error?

2) Even when I know the code where the error happened, I need to look through the code file to get to the exact place of the error code. Is there any tip that can make this process easier?

Re: A message to indicate where an error occurs?

Kurt_Bremser — Sun, 29 Mar 2020 20:37:30 GMT

When encountering a problem, I simply scan the log file for the word ERROR. That lets me locate the cause rather quickly.

Re: A message to indicate where an error occurs?

Tom — Sun, 29 Mar 2020 20:53:15 GMT

Make sure to use SOURCE2 option. Either set it globally or use on the individual %INCLUDE statement.

639  %include text / source2;
NOTE: %INCLUDE (level 1) file TEXT is file /Volumes/scratch/SAS_work175900044221/#LN00111.
640 +* inside text file;
NOTE: %INCLUDE (level 1) ending.

Re: A message to indicate where an error occurs?

mkeintz — Mon, 30 Mar 2020 02:34:31 GMT

Devilishly clever!

Re: A message to indicate where an error occurs?

Reeza — Mon, 30 Mar 2020 02:48:04 GMT

@Kurt_Bremser that doesn't apply here because when you use %INCLUDE() the code doesn't go to the log, so even if you get an ERROR message it's useless at that point.

Re: A message to indicate where an error occurs?

Tom — Mon, 30 Mar 2020 02:50:34 GMT

@Reeza wrote:

@Kurt_Bremser that doesn't apply here because when you use %INCLUDE() the code doesn't go to the log, so even if you get an ERROR message it's useless at that point.

That is not true. It only doesn't show the code in the log if you tell it not to display the code in the log.

Re: A message to indicate where an error occurs?

Reeza — Mon, 30 Mar 2020 03:14:32 GMT

No code in the log is the default behaviour of %INCLUDE. There's none of the code included in the log which would indicate where it actually happened. And no, saying the error is in the %INCLUDE statement is not enough to answer the OP's question.

 
 1          OPTIONS NONOTES NOSTIMER NOSOURCE NOSYNTAXCHECK;
 68         
 69         %include '/home/fkhurshed/Demo1/error_test.sas';
 ERROR: File SASHELP.CLAS.DATA does not exist.

@Tom wrote:

@Reeza wrote:

@Kurt_Bremser that doesn't apply here because when you use %INCLUDE() the code doesn't go to the log, so even if you get an ERROR message it's useless at that point.

That is not true. It only doesn't show the code in the log if you tell it not to display the code in the log.

Re: A message to indicate where an error occurs?

Tom — Mon, 30 Mar 2020 04:02:10 GMT

But this is only because you didn't set the SOURCE2 option. You can to it with an OPTIONS statement if you don't want to add it to every individual %INCLUDE statement. You can also set the NOSOURCE option and have the code from the main program not displayed in the log.

Re: A message to indicate where an error occurs?

Reeza — Mon, 30 Mar 2020 04:26:17 GMT

So I need to explicitly specify to tell it to put the code to the log? If I don't, the default is to not include it? Please explain how I told it not to put it in the log, according to your statement:

That is not true. It only doesn't show the code in the log if you tell it not to display the code in the log.

Re: A message to indicate where an error occurs?

Tom — Mon, 30 Mar 2020 05:01:44 GMT

Run proc options and check. It is your choice what options you set in your command line, config file, autoexec file, program, etc. In addition to SOURCE and SOURCE2 there is MPRINT and MACROGEN. Also MLOGIC and SYMBOLGEN.

Re: A message to indicate where an error occurs?

Kurt_Bremser — Mon, 30 Mar 2020 05:46:23 GMT

When running code with potentially unreliable includes, options source2 has to be set.