Hi,
We submit our stored processes via the Stored Process Web Application. My particular stored process is using prompts to provide a user interface to the user. However, since the actual processing can take a long time (30-60 minutes) to run, the "heavy lifting" is done by a SAS job running in batch. The actual results will be emailed back to the user as a PDF attachment.
Since the code isn't that long, I've included it below. What I'd like to know is if this is best practice, or if there is a better approach? In particular, the documentation says:
_ACTION
Used By
Web Clients
Description
Specifies an action for the Web application to take. Possible values for this variable are as follows:
BACKGROUND
executes the stored process in the background.
Can someone explain what this means exactly? How is "background" different than "not background"? The documentation doesn't make this clear.
Here's the code:
Stored Process (the prompts are dynamic lists based on SASHELP.SHOES for Region, Subsidiary, and Product):
%STPBEGIN;
OPTIONS VALIDVARNAME=ANY;
* End EG generated code (do not edit this line);
/*
Set all necessary macro variables.
If they are macro variables that you want sent to the batch job,
best practice is to create them all with the same prefix.
I am using the prefix "batch_".
Otherwise you need to change the PROC SQL code below.
*/
* macro variables sent to the batch job ;
%let batch_username = &_username;
%let batch_jobname = Test SAS Batch Job;
/*
Create a Stored Process (STP) session, which allocates the temporary SAVE library.
This library is used to pass parameters between the STP and the batch job.
While we are creating the STP session, also create the confirmation message.
Note that the "email when the job finishes" must be generated by the batch job,
not this Stored Process.
*/
data message;
* session timeout is in seconds - 2 minutes should be plenty ;
if _n_ = 1 then do;
if libref('SAVE') ne 0 then do;
rc = stpsrv_session('create',2*60);
end;
end;
infile datalines truncover;
input message $200.;
keep message;
datalines4;
Job &batch_jobname submitted at %sysfunc(strip(%sysfunc(datetime(),datetime18.))).
You will receive an email when the job finishes.
;;;;
run;
libname save list;
/*
This macro variable must be set AFTER the session is created.
*/
%let batch_save_library=%sysfunc(pathname(save));
/*
Now copy the desired parameters (macro variables) to the SAVE library.
This dataset will be used by the batch job to recreate the macro variables.
*/
proc sql noprint;
create table save.parameters as
select
name
,value
from
dictionary.macros
where
name like 'BATCH_%'
;
quit;
/*
Setup the parameters for invoking SAS, then launch the SAS job.
You MUST pass in the path to the SAVE library location via sysparm.
My preference is to use a configuration file, rather than command line options,
with ALL other job configuration (eg. -sysin) done in the configuration file.
This gives the maintainer of the code ONE place to go to change the batch job options.
However, you can configure this however you wish.
*/
%let sas=C:\SAS\Config\Lev1\SASApp\sas.bat;
%let config=&batch_config_file; /* if you have created a hidden STP parameter,
otherwise hard code this here */
%let sysparm=&batch_save_library;
%let options=;
* invoke the SAS batch job ;
systask command "&sas -config &config -sysparm ""&sysparm"" &options" nowait;
/*
Now display the confirmation message to the user.
The options nomerror and noserror suppress warning messages in the log
for unresolved macro and unresolved macro variable references.
HTML code in particular can have tokens (eg. &program=...) that look like macro variables
but are HTML tokens instead.
*/
%let options=%sysfunc(getoption(merror,keyword)) %sysfunc(getoption(serror,keyword));
options nomerror noserror;
data message;
set message;
message=resolve(message);
run;
options &options;
title;
options nonumber nodate;
proc report data=message nowd noheader center ls=96 spacing=0;
columns message;
define message / width=96 " ";
run;
* Begin EG generated code (do not edit this line);
;*';*";*/;quit;
%STPEND;
* End EG generated code (do not edit this line);
And here's a sample SAS batch job:
/*
Allocate the SAVE library passed in via sysparm
*/
libname save "%scan(&sysparm,1,%str(^|))";
/*
Set macro variables passed in to the batch job by the Stored Process
*/
data _null_;
set save.parameters;
call symputx(name,value,"G");
run;
/*
The rest of your program goes here...
You would process the macro variables just like you would in a stored process.
*/
* Print macro variables ;
options nocenter;
proc sql;
select
name,value
from
dictionary.macros
where
name like 'BATCH_%' and scope="GLOBAL"
order by
name
;
quit;
* Print SASHELP.SHOES filtered on input parameters ;
* Note: %stp_seplist processes the STP parms, creating a separated list ;
options mprint;
%macro stp;
%local where;
%let where=%sysfunc(sum(&batch_region_count,&batch_product_count,&batch_subsidiary_count));
options noserror nomerror;
data subset;
set sashelp.shoes;
%if (&where) %then %do;
where 1
%end;
%if (&batch_region_count) %then %do;
and region in (%stp_seplist(batch_region))
%end;
%if (&batch_product_count) %then %do;
and product in (%stp_seplist(batch_product))
%end;
%if (&batch_subsidiary_count) %then %do;
and subsidiary in (%stp_seplist(batch_subsidiary))
%end;
%if (&where) %then %do;
;
%end;
run;
options serror merror;
proc print;
run;
%mend;
%stp
/*
Send email that the job has finished.
*/
* Create message dataset ;
data mail;
length parm $15 line $1000;
infile datalines dsd dlm="|" truncover;
input parm line;
datalines4;
| Your SAS job &batch_jobname has completed with return code rc=&sysrc..
;;;;
run;
%sendmail(to=&batch_username,subject=%str(Job &batch_jobname has completed),content_type=text/html)
Please post your question as a self-contained data step in the form of "have" (source) and "want" (desired results).
I won't contribute to your post if I can't cut-and-paste your syntactically correct code into SAS.
