topic Re: Macro Variable for SAS/STAT version? in SAS Programming

Macro Variable for SAS/STAT version?

JeffMeyers — Mon, 26 Oct 2020 21:26:41 GMT

Hello,

I'm looking to update my NEWSURV macro with the ability to grab RMST values from proc LIFETEST, and I was curious if there is a system macro variable to grab the session's SAS/STAT version like there is for the actual SAS version. I'm not sure if SAS/STAT is automatically updated for SAS 9.4M5 or if they are updated separately on user's systems. I believe the RMST options were added in SAS/STAT 15.1 so I'm looking for a macro variable to tell me which version number the user was on.

Re: Macro Variable for SAS/STAT version?

FreelanceReinh — Mon, 26 Oct 2020 22:18:33 GMT

Hello @JeffMeyers,

I'm not sure if there's an easier way, but in any case you could read that version number from PROC PRODUCT_STATUS output.

Example:

proc printto log=work._tmpcat._tmp.log;
proc product_status;
proc printto;
run;

filename tmplog catalog 'work._tmpcat._tmp.log';

data _null_;
infile tmplog;
do until(_infile_=:'For SAS/STAT');
  input;
end;
input @'Custom version information:' statver;
call symputx('statver',statver);
run;

Re: Macro Variable for SAS/STAT version?

Reeza — Mon, 26 Oct 2020 22:41:18 GMT

I feel like it would also be buried in one of the SASHELP libraries but I couldn't find it, albeit it wasn't a thorough search 😞

Re: Macro Variable for SAS/STAT version?

WarrenKuhfeld — Mon, 26 Oct 2020 22:56:40 GMT

Back a few years ago, some coauthors and myself composed the book on the data sets. FWIW, I do not remember that being available there.

Re: Macro Variable for SAS/STAT version?

SASKiwi — Mon, 26 Oct 2020 23:46:11 GMT

Just thought it would be worthwhile advising that PROC PRODUCT_STATUS is now deprecated in SAS Viya and will be removed from future versions according to the documentation. Not sure if there is an alternative way to get the product version if you are running SAS/STAT on Viya.

Re: Macro Variable for SAS/STAT version?

JeffMeyers — Tue, 27 Oct 2020 02:54:09 GMT

This seems like a really cool solution and it looks like it works when I test it out. Thank you for writing this! I also like that this doesn't seem to create a physical file or write anything to the log as it would help keep my macro output clean.

Re: Macro Variable for SAS/STAT version?

SASKiwi — Tue, 27 Oct 2020 03:14:00 GMT

@JeffMeyers - Yes that solution is really cool. It is writing to a SAS catalog stored in the SAS WORK library. That means when your SAS session ends it will be automatically deleted.