another reason to upgrade to SAS9.3

[Peter_C]

In SAS9.3 the LOGPARM options which enable date and time and process-id to be added to a LOG file name, are also supported in the name of an ALTLOG file

for some time I have maintained a collection of updates to ensure for every SAS session (display manager) I keep a copy of the log. (they are very easy to admin/delete, but almost always impossible to replace). The techniques varied from platform to platform and through releases of SAS.

Since release 6.07, the ALTLOG option has named a file to which a copy of the log is written.

On zOS it was easy to add system generated dates and times to the JCL or script to invoke SAS.

For unix and windows platforms, I have been keeping a few programs which update a config file with a new ALTLOG file name as each session starts.

From SAS9.3 I shall be able to retire these old solutions, and add to my config file something as simple as

-logparm "rollover=session"

-altlog !mySASfiles\altlog#d#b#Y.#H#M#s.#p.log

(should you want to try this out, these options can be added to the command which invokes SAS,

(or inserted in a sasv9.cfg file in your "My Documents" folder and invoke SAS.exe with NO options (when it searches according to the SAS9.2 rules at http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/hostwin/63285/HTML/default/a000104286.htm#searchrules

( which are probably the same as the rules for SAS9.3 at http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/hostwin/63047/HTML/default/p0bmj7wjme32ayn1h4wim7trkhp6....