topic Re: PROC printto - not generating log or output in SAS Programming

PROC printto - not generating log or output

ArchanaSudhir — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 21:06:02 GMT

HI,

I am trying to use proc printo in a macro. I have given proc printto in the beginning with 'filename &' at the end - just a proc printto.

my log and lst fiels have 0 bytes.

%Macro abc(filename=);

proc printto file="&filename..lst"
log="&filename..log" new;

run;

.....PROC Means; PROC COMPARE; etc...

proc printto;
run;

%MEND abc;

Please advise as to why my log and output files are 0 bytes.

Thanks,

Archana

Re: PROC printto - not generating log or output

Reeza — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 21:35:30 GMT

First - remove the proc printto and run the code. Does it execute properly? What does the log say?

Then re-add and see what happens.

In your code above, I see the macro definition, but it's never called, that you've shown.

Re: PROC printto - not generating log or output

Astounding — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 21:49:50 GMT

Also note, PROC PRINTTO does not have an option called FILE=. It uses PRINT= to designate the destination for the .lst file. By any chance, were you ignoring error messages? Or could you not see the log to be able to observe the error messages?

Re: PROC printto - not generating log or output

FreelanceReinh — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 22:05:36 GMT

@Astounding: I would have agreed with your statement about FILE= vs. PRINT= and was surprised to see that FILE= is working. As it turned out, FILE= and NAME= are aliases to the PRINT= option (according to SAS 9.4 documentation).

Re: PROC printto - not generating log or output

Astounding — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 22:12:42 GMT

Not only are you right about that, but that behavior even goes back to SAS 9.2. My only excuse: I did check the documentation but didn't read far enough to see the Aliases. That section is actually a little bit later. My fault!

Re: PROC printto - not generating log or output

RW9 — Tue, 01 Mar 2016 10:27:23 GMT

Hi,

Out of interest, what is the goal of putting a printto within a macro statement? Generally speaking to be an effective log it needs both the call of the macro, and the preceding steps, to make sense of the call - as noted by one of the responders here asking for the call of the macro. To my mind, writing out lots of separate logs will just mak elife more complicated. Keep it simple.

Re: PROC printto - not generating log or output

ArchanaSudhir — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 18:32:12 GMT

Thanks. once i made sure log was getting generated, it worked fine.

Re: PROC printto - not generating log or output

ArchanaSudhir — Thu, 03 Mar 2016 18:34:22 GMT

HI RW9,

I have to run 30 similar programs with slight variations. So I am using a macro with proc printto to generate different lst and outpuit so that I dont have to manually save.