topic Any recommendations on how to structure enterprise level macros for all developers use.? in SAS Programming

Any recommendations on how to structure enterprise level macros for all developers use.?

sknguru0 — Tue, 15 Dec 2020 14:32:05 GMT

Good Morning!

I am looking to create a structure within our installation, where we can have standard macros used by various applications and departments on top of sas supplied macros. I did some reading and not convinced with the "compiled macro" and thinking of just creating macros and have developer add it in using SASAUTOS options. I did come across this article https://support.sas.com/resources/papers/proceedings/proceedings/sugi29/047-29.pdf which is good, but I am looking for any recommendation to structure, for example, I want one folder with very common macros that can be used by everyone, and in another level, application specific macros, so, the developers can add these libraries in search path.

Thanks for your help.

Re: Any recommendations on how to structure enterprise level macros for all developers use.?

Astounding — Tue, 15 Dec 2020 14:49:41 GMT

SASAUTOS is perfect for this task. You can add many folders to the searched pathways, depending on which sets of macros you might want to access.

The main stumbling block would be name conflicts and version control. If you have production macros and development macros, what would happen if a macro by the same name appears in both folders. The answer is simple: first one found in the search path is used. But that may cause unintended consequences. A programmer who accesses both production and development macros may be unaware of a new addition to one of the folders that would cause him to be using a version of the macro that he doesn't intend to use. You might want to set up a formal process that encompasses moving a macro from development to production:

email notification that the change is going to take place, and a date of change, and asking if this will cause any problems
make the change during non-peak hours
when replacing a macro in the production folder, also copy the old version to a historical folder just in case (a few possible scenarios exist where you may need access to the historical version)
remove the code from the development folder
email notification that the change has taken place

There's more to think about. Should a developer always choose an unused name, even when modifying an existing macro? But this will start you in the right direction (IMO).

Re: Any recommendations on how to structure enterprise level macros for all developers use.?

sknguru0 — Thu, 17 Dec 2020 04:34:51 GMT

Thanks for your response.