Using Ultra Edit in Combination with Enterprise Guide

[newtolinux]

Could Enterprise Guide be enhanced to offer Ultra Edit as an "external editor" as it does currently for external Windows comparison tools?

[ChrisHemedinger]

You can do this today with SAS Enterprise Guide 7.12!  It works when your SAS programs are saved on your local file system -- not with embedded programs or remote files on your SAS session.

1. Set UltraEdit as your default editor for .SAS programs (you've probably done that)

2. Right-click on the program in your flow or project tree, select Open <program> with Windows Default

I use this sometimes today -- but with Notepad++.

Chris

[CaseySmith]

As a matter of fact, we added this functionality (pretty close to what you describe -- edit in an external editor from EG) in EG 7.12...

If you right-click a program in the Proect Tree or Process Flow, on the Open context menu, you will see an "Open with Windows Default" menu item.  If you click that menu item, the .sas file will be opened in whatever program is associated with .sas files on your Windows OS (usually EG by default, so you'd have to change the default application to your preferred editor in Windows).  You can then edit and save the program in your preferred editor.  When you return to EG, if the program is still open in EG, you'll get notified that changes have been made outside of EG and ask if you'd like to reload them.  (If the program is not open in EG, the externally made changes will get picked up automatically.)  Then, you can run the programs in EG.

Note: It only works with externally referenced files (not embedded programs).

Casey

EDIT: Just noticed @ChrisHemedinger beat me to it!

[Quentin]

Just wanted to note that the better handling of externally made changes to a .sas file (i.e. the notification with option to reload) is a big help. In earlier versions, EG did not seem to know when an open file had been edited outside of EG, and once or twice I managed to lose external edits by saving an open file in EG before it had loaded the external changes. So thanks for that!

[newtolinux]

I realize (belatedly) that I should have been more specific in my request. How would one submit a program that had been edited externally (using Ultra Edit or some other tool)?

[CaseySmith]

Several ways.  Here are the two most common I can think of...

-open the .sas file in EG, Display Manager, SAS Studio, or any other client capable of running SAS code, then run the program.

-via batch (ex. "C:\Program Files\SASHome\SASFoundation\9.4\sas.exe -sysin c:\myprogram.sas")

[newtolinux]

Sure. But since we are in a client/server environment (and do not have SAS/CONNECT licensed), I assume there is no way to submit the code to the server from within Ultra Edit? (Windows desktop / Linux server)

[CaseySmith]

Not unless someone has written (or is willing to write) an UltraEdit plug-in to do so.  (It is definitely feasible to write a client or plugin that submits SAS code to a remote server (using IOM interfaces in Integration Technologies, as EG does -- SAS/CONNECT not needed).)

A quick search turned up this existing UltraEdit plugin (contributed by an UltraEdit user) that advertises allowing you to, "Edit, Run, and Debug your SAS Programs in UltraEdit":

http://www.ultraedit.com/support/tutorials_power_tips/ultraedit/sas.html

I know nothing about it (ex. may or may not work with client/server setup), but may be worth investigating.

[ChrisHemedinger]

I've never tried to extend UltraEdit, but I do have several examples of running SAS from other environments.  Perhaps you can adapt one.

• A Microsoft .NET project to access SAS using SAS Integration Technologies
• Several examples of using Windows PowerShell to drive SAS, again via SAS Integration Technologies

[newtolinux]

Thanks, Chris. I appreciate your response and will look into this.