topic Re: Final line of code to stop unbalanced quotation marks ?? in SAS Programming

Final line of code to stop unbalanced quotation marks ??

Nietzsche — Sat, 05 Nov 2022 06:23:27 GMT

Hi, I am reading the official SAS Specialist prep guide, on page 69, talking about error caused by unbalanced quotation marks, there is a tip saying

Both SAS Enterprise Guide and SAS Studio add a final line of code to stop unbalanced quotation marks.

What does that even mean?

I ran the code in SAS studio, nothing happened, no log or output.

is it something to do with the last paragraph saying that submitting a line so that I do not have to manually cancel in SAS studio or SAS EG compared to other SAS apps?

Re: Final line of code to stop unbalanced quotation marks ??

Kurt_Bremser — Sat, 05 Nov 2022 06:47:46 GMT

When you submit code in EG or Studio, look at the end of the log. You'll find a "magic string" which is meant to deal with missing semicolons, unbalanced quotes, unfinished comments, missing QUIT and RUN statements.

What it can't fix are incomplete macro definitions.

Re: Final line of code to stop unbalanced quotation marks ??

yabwon — Sat, 05 Nov 2022 08:37:35 GMT

The string is (as @Kurt_Bremser wrote) at the end:

;*';*";*/;quit;run;

But unfortunately it does'nt fix unfinished macros.

Bart

Re: Final line of code to stop unbalanced quotation marks ??

Nietzsche — Sat, 05 Nov 2022 09:44:52 GMT

I don't see no such code at the end of any of my logs

Re: Final line of code to stop unbalanced quotation marks ??

Kurt_Bremser — Sat, 05 Nov 2022 10:24:39 GMT

It's hidden behind a OPTIONS NONOTES NOSTIMER NOSOURCE NOSYNTAXCHECK; statement.

To see it, go to (in SAS Studio) Settings and there to Code and Log. In this, you'll find Show Created Code in SAS Log (or similar, for me - German - it's "Generierten Code in SAS-Log anzeigen")

Re: Final line of code to stop unbalanced quotation marks ??

fja — Sat, 05 Nov 2022 10:35:29 GMT

@Nietzsche wrote:

I don't see no such code at the end of any of my logs

Hello @Nietsche!

I see the following in my log:

 70         data work.admitfee;
 71         set cert.admit;
 72         where actlevel='HIGH;
 73         run;
 74         
 75         proc print data=work.admitfee;
 76         var id name actlevel fee;
 77         run;
 78         
 79         OPTIONS NONOTES NOSTIMER NOSOURCE NOSYNTAXCHECK;
 80         ODS HTML CLOSE;
 81         &GRAPHTERM; ;*';*";*/;RUN;
 
 NOTE: There were 0 observations read from the data set CERT.ADMIT.
       WHERE 0 /* an obviously FALSE WHERE clause */ ;
 NOTE: The data set WORK.ADMITFEE has 0 observations and 9 variables.

Where line number 81 contains the added code as indicated by @yabwon and the Note contains that famous "warning".

You should actually see something similar.

Best

Fja

Re: Final line of code to stop unbalanced quotation marks ??

Nietzsche — Sat, 05 Nov 2022 10:39:14 GMT

ah yes I see it now. Didn't know how much code are actually hidden behind the scene!