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wkossack_nspirehealth_com
Calcite | Level 5

I'm looking into bringing version control into our production sas enviornment.

Anyone have experiences with Sub-version or CVS?  Or can anyone have experiences or recommendations of other version control software?

17 REPLIES 17
SASKiwi
PROC Star

We use Microsoft's TFS (Team Foundation Server) for which the client software is Microsoft Visual Studio and found that it works very well for us. It has been easy to set up and to learn. Our Production SAS systems are exclusively developed in SAS code (not EG or DIS projects) so these are the artefacts under change control. If you are mainly a Windows SAS environment this is worth considering. Our main limitation at the moment is Production deployment is not automated, but we are planning to deal with this through some additional scripting. 

PaulHomes
Rhodochrosite | Level 12

I've used Subversion for managing changes to both SAS code and SAS deployment directory configuration files. I wouldn't recommend CVS - there are lots of better alternatives these days. For my own development I now use git, primarily for the benefits of offline commits etc. However, I'd probably still tend to recommend Subversion for version control at SAS sites due to it being a little simpler to understand and the wider availability of good GUI tools (including SAS Data Integration Studio support).

You might also be interested in reading a WUSS 2012 paper by Stephen Philp: An Introduction to Git Version Control for SAS Programmers

wkossack_nspirehealth_com
Calcite | Level 5

How about Vault by Source Gear?  The software development group at my company uses it for application development (not SAS).

One thing I would like to have is the ability to run production reports from inside version control instead of from a separate location.

TestingSAS
Obsidian | Level 7

Hi Paul

is there a way to use git as a plugin in DI studio, SVN and CVS are built into DI but can I add Git as well.

thanks

PaulHomes
Rhodochrosite | Level 12

There is an API available to write a DI Studio version control plug-in, but I'm not aware of anyone who has written one for git (perhaps someone else knows?).  See the Prerequisites for Version Control section in the SAS Data Integration Studio 4.9: User's Guide:

If you want to use a version control server other than a CVS server or an SVN server, you must create a custom plug-in for that server. There is a documented application programming interface (API) to integrate other versioning systems with SAS Data Integration Studio. See this API documentation at http://support.sas.com/rnd/gendoc/versioncontrol/43/en/. Keep in mind that SAS Data Integration Studio uses only the first plug-in that it finds in the installation path. You must either name your custom plug-in a name that can be found before all other plug-ins, or you must remove other plug-ins from the installation path.

If you want integration within DI Studio this would be the way to go, but it is non-trivial (although SAS do provide sample code for SVN and CVS to help you get started). A simple (non-integrated) method would be to export SPK files from DI studio and check those into a git repository from the command line (or TortoiseGit on Windows).

Patrick
Opal | Level 21

If you are using DI Studio then this link might be of interest for you: SAS(R) Data Integration Studio 4.3: User's Guide

wkossack_nspirehealth_com
Calcite | Level 5

DI looks interesting but it looks something like Enterprise Guide I'm not sure we need the extra expense.  We are a small company so cost is important

Patrick
Opal | Level 21

DI Studio is SAS' tool for Data Integration. Very different from EG. But I'm not trying to sell you DI Studio and it's only worth it if you have serious Data Integration work to do.

I believe Paul Holmes has given you good advice.

bentleyj1
Quartz | Level 8

What operating system are you working in?  I work in UNIX and would like to find a version control app that works with text files like SAS.

wkossack_nspirehealth_com
Calcite | Level 5

I have not tried Subversion but it is supposed to be open source and available on windows and UNIX.

I'm working in a client sever install of SAS running on windows server 2003

Tim_SAS
Barite | Level 11

Subversion is expressly designed to do version control for text files. It is free and open source. There is almost certainly a binary package available for your particular flavor of Unix. There are many web pages and books available from which you can learn how to use it. See http://svnbook.red-bean.com/ for example.

bentleyj1
Quartz | Level 8

Thanks Tim.  I'll do a google search.  Because it's free we might be able to get it. :smileygrin:

wkossack_nspirehealth_com
Calcite | Level 5

go for it

I'm going to start battling IT.  They want me to use Vault.  Anyone have an idea how much DI Studio is?  I sent a query to SAS Sales but no response yet.

SASKiwi
PROC Star

I haven't used Subversion, but if your organisation has Microsoft's Visual Studio and TFS available then I would suggest you seriously consider it as set up and learning to use it is minimal.

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