topic Re: How to embed all SAS code into SEG project? in SAS Enterprise Guide

How to embed all SAS code into SEG project?

Haris — Wed, 11 May 2016 17:18:45 GMT

I know how to embed individual SAS code links in SEG. Is there a way to tell SEG to embed all SAS code at once?

Conversely, is there a way to Save As all embeded SAS code into separate SAS code snippets? I know I can save the entire SEG project as one giant SAS code module and I can save each code module as a SAS code. But can I point SEG to a folder (in my case it's Windows) and have it use the existing module names to create separate SAS code files with *.sas extensions?

What I am trying to do is to import multiple SAS programs into SEG. These are all parts of the code system used to run annual reports. I need to make changes to those modules, run the new report based on the previous report's code and then save the updated code to a new location preserving the structure of the previous report. I really don't want to merge all those multiple SAS code modules into a single giant SAS code module.

Also, I thought there was an OPTION for changing what happens when SAS code is opened in SEG. By default, external SAS code is linked. I thought I remembered an option to automatically embed rather than link the code. Can's seem to find that option in SEG 7.11. Am I imagning things?

Thanks in advance.

Re: How to embed all SAS code into SEG project?

Astounding — Wed, 11 May 2016 16:52:05 GMT

It sounds like the tool you are looking for is %INCLUDE:

options source2;

%include '\path\to\one\program.sas';

%include '\path\to\another\program.sas';

Any of the files can be updated, and the same project then would %INCLUDE the updated code.

Re: How to embed all SAS code into SEG project?

Haris — Wed, 11 May 2016 17:00:06 GMT

Not sure what you are thinking, Astounding. %INCLUDE has nothing to do with embedding. I already use %INCLUDE to assemble individual SAS modules into the final execution sequence.

Re: How to embed all SAS code into SEG project?

Astounding — Wed, 11 May 2016 17:15:36 GMT

Sorry, my bad.

Re: How to embed all SAS code into SEG project?

Haris — Wed, 11 May 2016 17:19:41 GMT

No biggie. Thanks for trying, anyways.

Re: How to embed all SAS code into SEG project?

TomKari — Wed, 11 May 2016 18:45:22 GMT

Probably through the Automation facilities, but it'll definitely take some effort.

Tom

Re: How to embed all SAS code into SEG project?

emera86 — Tue, 05 Feb 2019 08:43:49 GMT

Dear @Haris,

Did you finally found a straightforward way to solve this? I was just looking for the same piece of advice...

Thanks for your help!

Re: How to embed all SAS code into SEG project?

Haris — Tue, 05 Feb 2019 13:03:20 GMT

Regretfully, no.

Re: How to embed all SAS code into SEG project?

SASKiwi — Tue, 05 Feb 2019 22:45:22 GMT

I'm curious to know why you want to embed a group of SAS programs in a SEG project? Is it to add to an existing project?

If your EG project consists only of manually-developed code then what benefits do you see in doing this?

Re: How to embed all SAS code into SEG project?

Haris — Tue, 05 Feb 2019 22:58:26 GMT

This is for running about 100 SAS programs twice a year with minimal updates/edits to the code. We do archive each code set every report cycle though.

Thing is, four somewhat different programs feed from the same stock code and each program makes their own small tweaks. That's why I would like to be able to break the link to all programs at the source so that each programmer would not need to worry about affecting other programs.

Yes, our SEG projects are 90% manually developed SAS programs but SEG is so much prettier than Base SAS. Various auto-completion and look-up options make things so much easier to manage. Log summary Explorer makes navigating and exploring the logs much faster. We also store Excel, Word, PowerPoint and PDF documents in the SEG projects making for easy quick navigation and organization of these rather massive projects.

There are other benefits but the ones above are the main ones that come to mind. And finally, I have not opened base SAS in about a decade so I don't even know where things are in base SAS any more. In SEG I feel like I am in the 21st century. Bases SAS is 70s 🙂

Re: How to embed all SAS code into SEG project?

SASKiwi — Wed, 06 Feb 2019 00:54:08 GMT

@Haris - interesting perspective. We too exclusively use EG, but only to manually develop programs that are not embedded. All programs are version-controlled outside of EG in MS Visual Studio with Team Foundation Server. That includes Excel spreadsheets containing reference data. It looks like you are using EG projects in a similar way to our use of a version control tool.

EG is primarily used for development and testing purposes where sometimes EG tasks come in handy. We use the Log Summary explorer too. Job runs are done exclusively in batch mode using SAS Management Console where we use the LSF scheduler. Hence the reason we don't use EG projects as these can't be run outside of EG. We keep all batch logs as an audit trail of what we have done.

Always good to hear about other ways of working with EG. Thanks for that!

Re: How to embed all SAS code into SEG project?

Haris — Wed, 06 Feb 2019 16:06:19 GMT

Nice, Kiwi! Thanks for sharing.
We don't have any formal version control outside of saving the code and the log corresponding to each run. Low-tech non-IT solution here. Log saving is done manually after the execution of every program which is not the most efficient way to handle it. We do use %INCLUDE extensively to assemble sets of programs into a single Master program and run a single LOG.
If you know how to program in SAS, SEG tasks seem less efficient based on our experience. What SEG tasks do you find useful for a proficient SAS programmer?
One more capability of SEG that we utilize is the AUTOEXEC workflow. Our programs use macro variables extensively. Macro variables differentiate among the various programs that we base on the same SAS Code. Well, those macros, when placed in the AUTOEXEC workflow, become SEG-project-specific. This enables us to do different things running the same programs. I don't know if base SAS can do that automatically.

Re: How to embed all SAS code into SEG project?

Patrick — Fri, 08 Feb 2019 03:12:55 GMT

@Haris

save program as.. allows you to store your code as external .sas files keeping only links to these programs in the EG project. I guess that's actually already something you're doing.

You will need to use a path which is accessible for multiple users (either on the server or then on a shared drive everyone maps the same way to their local machine or accesses it via UNC path).

You will need to store the .sas files on the SAS server/in a location accessible by the SAS server.

Once you've got the external .sas files you can implement another program in EG which just does %includes to the programs you need to run as a set. You can of course have multiple such programs in EG defining multiple different sets of code to be run.

The path in the %include statement must be as it looks like from the SAS server side.

Wouldn't that give you the flexibility you're after?

Re: How to embed all SAS code into SEG project?

Haris — Fri, 08 Feb 2019 15:28:42 GMT

I am not sure I follow what you are proposing. I am looking to import about 100 stand-alone SAS programs from a shared network location into an SEG project and embed them all into that project. I want to be able to edit the programs in SEG without changing the originals. I don't think your proposal accomplishes that. Am I missing something.

Re: How to embed all SAS code into SEG project?

Patrick — Sat, 09 Feb 2019 23:19:32 GMT

@Haris

"I am looking to import about 100 stand-alone SAS programs from a shared network location into an SEG project and embed them all into that project. I want to be able to edit the programs in SEG without changing the originals."

Then first create a copy of these 100 programs into another folder on the network and then open the programs from this folder.

Doing it this way won't actually import the code into EG but create links to the code which you then can use as if the code were directly stored in EG.

Now for the versioning of your external code (the .sas programs):

You could have the code EG links to in a folder called "current" and you then create copies of this code into folders with a date component in the name.

If you don't change the names of the .sas files then whatever version of the .sas file is in your current folder is what EG will link to.

Re: How to embed all SAS code into SEG project?

Haris — Sun, 10 Feb 2019 19:41:58 GMT

@Patrick , I get the 'copy', 'import' and 'open' parts. That's not a problem. I don't get why you are completely sidestepping the 'embed' part. Are you saying I don't need to do that to accomplish my goal? The key requirement is for four different programs to 'feed' off of the common code making small program-specific adjustments; e.g., 'Age GE 16' for one program and 'Age LE 18' for another, without sending those small changes to the mothership on the network. If I don't embed, I need to make four copies of the source programs every cycle and that is exactly what I am trying to avoid. EMBED does exactly what I need--it breaks the link between the program on the network and stores all changes in SEG project. It's kinda like a coloring book, I want to import the outlines but each user gets to color in their own unique way.

For versioning, that's exactly what we do: simply copy all of the code from Fall cycle to Spring cycle to Fall cycle and so on. The small variations between the programs we mostly manage with program-specific macro variables. The ad hoc ones get saved in the logs.

Re: How to embed all SAS code into SEG project?

Patrick — Sun, 10 Feb 2019 21:00:01 GMT

@Haris

O.k. - then I misunderstood part of your requirements. Well, you will have to replicate the code somewhere then whether that's now code embedded in EG or different external .sas files.

Just as an idea:

If your actual programs are parameterized then you could set the macro variables outside of the actual program which would allow you to work with a single code version. Just either define prompts in EG or have a first "init" code node where you define and populate the macro vars.

And just thinking a bit more: If you want to implement your programs with default parameters which get set in case they haven't been defined already upstream then you could use code as below:

/* create and populate macro variable if it doesn't exist already */
%macro setMvarDefault(name,value);
  %if not %symexist(&name) %then 
    %do;
      %global &name;
      %let &name=&value;
    %end;
%mend;
%setMvarDefault(test,5);
%put &=test;

/* here the test that macro call won't overwrite pre-defined macro variables */
%let test=10;
%setMvarDefault(test,5);
%put &=test;

Re: How to embed all SAS code into SEG project?

Suzy_Cat — Thu, 03 Oct 2019 04:18:17 GMT

Cool, Thanks @Patrick! I am inspired and it looks like a good solution to my current situation!

Re: How to embed all SAS code into SEG project?

Suzy_Cat — Tue, 14 Jan 2020 23:36:45 GMT

Hi @Haris, I totally understand your need and wish we could get there with what we exactly want to achieve. Please do advise if you eventually find the best solution to your question. I am really keen….

Re: How to embed all SAS code into SEG project?

Henrik_P — Mon, 02 Mar 2020 10:58:52 GMT

I have the same need and problem

There USED to be a way to do in EG 7.11. When you moved (via the right-click menue) sevral non-embeded programs to a different process flow, that would emebed them. However we switched to EG 7.15 and that feature* is nog longer present it seems. A pity for me.

*I think it was actually a bug. But I miss it now.