Okay, I recant my somewhat myopic opinion on this post.
Yes, it would be very useful for SAS Institute to consider a BallotWare item adding a SAS AUTOMATIC variable representing the number of "selected observations" for the most recent SAS DATA or PROC step.
Too many times, I am forced to program my way through a the "no observations selected" condition by adding my own code (in a DATA step, whether I enjoy it or not) setting a macro variable (like SQLOBS) but for my other PROC and DATA step executions. The reason is that when SAS PROC PRINT does not select any observations, no output is sent to the ODS or SASLIST destination and the resulting output (document) is empty -- not very informative to end-users, by the way.
A justification for this automatic variable which would be available *AFTER* the previous PROC or DATA step (other than PROC SQL), would permit me to execute conditional macro code based on SYSOBS or whatever SAS wants to call the variable.
And maybe, just maybe, for some future present to the SAS user community, certail SAS macro language such as %IF / %END may be executed without having to wrap a %MACRO / %MEND around it, in order to conditionally execute a complete DATA step.
Scott Barry
SBBWorks, Inc.