topic Re: macro %runquit; abort if syserr NOTE: SAS went to a new line in SAS Programming

macro %runquit; abort if syserr

blakezen — Thu, 19 May 2016 16:11:29 GMT

Hi All,

I utilize the below macro to check for errors and abort the run (but not close the session) if an error is encountered. I use SAS EG. The macro is called at the end of each selected data or proc step ( "%Runquit;" instead of "run;" ). The problem I'm having is that SAS aborts not only when there is an error encountered, but also if there is a warning (particularly "variable reference not resolved" warning).

Can anyone help me with the code so that SAS doesn't abort if there is a warning, only when an error is encountered?

Thanks so much in advnance.

%Macro Runquit; /* create a macro to use at end of data and proc steps. */

; run; quit;

%if &syserr. ne 0 %then %do ;

%abort cancel;

%end;

%Mend Runquit ; /* if error is encountered, this macro will stop running the entire program but won't close the session */

Re: macro %runquit; abort if syserr

ballardw — Thu, 19 May 2016 16:17:06 GMT

Try

%if %eval(&syserr > 4)

Re: macro %runquit; abort if syserr

blakezen — Thu, 19 May 2016 16:35:34 GMT

thank you! that worked perfectly, but can you briefly note to me why that syntax solved my issue? what is %eval(&syserr>4) doing to get my issue resolved.

Thanks again!

Re: macro %runquit; abort if syserr

ballardw — Thu, 19 May 2016 17:06:09 GMT

Syserr has a relatively large number of possible reported values depending on which procedures are involved. We want to use a numeric comparison becuase in default macro processor is a text based system and in text 10 is not greater than 4. From the documentation on SYSERR you see these values of warning or error codes which would not be less than 4 in text comparisons (9999 would but you should get the gist)

108	Problem with one or more BY groups
112	Error with one or more BY groups
116	Memory problems with one or more BY groups
120	I/O problems with one or more BY groups

The following table contains error return codes. The codes do not indicate any specific problems. These codes are guidelines to identify the nature of a problem.

Error Code	Description
1008	General data problem
1012	General error condition
1016	Out-of-memory condition
1020	I/O problem
2000	Semantic action problem
2001	Attribute processing problem
3000	Syntax error
4000	Not a valid procedure
9999	Bug in the procedure
20000	A step was stopped or an ABORT statement was issued.
20001	An ABORT RETURN statement was issued.
20002	An ABORT ABEND statement was issued.
25000

Re: macro %runquit; abort if syserr

blakezen — Thu, 19 May 2016 17:07:22 GMT

Thanks so much. This makes everything so much more clear!

Re: macro %runquit; abort if syserr

FreelanceReinh — Thu, 19 May 2016 21:44:00 GMT

I think one could safely omit %EVAL in this case, because: "All parts of the macro language that evaluate expressions (for example, %IF and %DO statements) call %EVAL to evaluate the condition." (documentation of %EVAL function)

Re: macro %runquit; abort if syserr

ChrisNZ — Wed, 01 Jun 2016 22:43:29 GMT

If you don't want to trigger an error, you can also look at this, though it was created before %abort was available, so is mostly obsolete now.

http://support.sas.com/kb/24/825.html

Re: macro %runquit; abort if syserr NOTE: SAS went to a new line

ChrisNZ — Wed, 01 Jun 2016 23:43:59 GMT

Also note that some warnings really should be notes, like

The intervals on the axis labeled xxx are not evenly spaced

TITLE1 is too long. Height has been reduced ...

while some notes really should be warnings, like

      Invalid numeric data, XXXX=yyyy, at line X column X.
      Invalid argument to function XXX at line XXX column XXX.
      Library XXX does not exist.
      MERGE statement has more than one data set with repeats of BY values.
      Division by zero detected at line XXX column XXX
      Mathematical operations could not be performed at the following places
      Interactivity disabled with BY processing
      SAS went to a new line when INPUT statement reached past the end of a line

Some warnings were later on made into notes, like

Compressing data set xxx increased size by yyy percent.

I wish the rest was reassigned as well....

Re: macro %runquit; abort if syserr

blakezen — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 14:11:28 GMT

Thank you!

Re: macro %runquit; abort if syserr

blakezen — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 14:12:24 GMT

Thanks for the breakout!

Re: macro %runquit; abort if syserr

blakezen — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 14:12:47 GMT

Thanks so much, this is useful!

Re: macro %runquit; abort if syserr NOTE: SAS went to a new line

blakezen — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 14:13:10 GMT

Thanks so much ChrisNZ!

Re: macro %runquit; abort if syserr NOTE: SAS went to a new line

Quentin — Thu, 02 Jun 2016 15:56:50 GMT

@ChrisNZ The (undocomented) system option dsoptions=note2err will turn a bunch of those bad notes into errors.

Unfortunately it does not catch the library does not exist note. I keep thinking there may be a dedicted system option for turning this note into a warning or error, but I can't find it. Would be nice. Doesn't catch merge with duplicate BY variables either.

I tend to put more faith in log scanning than these error codes, since in log scanning I can decide to treat unusual notes as errors (I have a white list of acceptable notes, rather than a black list of bad notes). I end jobs with a log scan, but of course wouldn't want to log scan after every step.

Re: macro %runquit; abort if syserr NOTE: SAS went to a new line

ChrisNZ — Fri, 03 Jun 2016 02:25:34 GMT

Thanks @Quentin Yes it seems everybody has their log scanning routine nowadays. It is bit sad that we need to resort to this because the default behaviour is flawed.