How to convert SCL methods to work in SAS/Studio

[Tom]

Does anyone have any tips on how to make the migration from SAS Display Manager to SAS/Studio for someone that has a lot of methods developed in SCL code?  Here is a note I got from a friend. 

I reuse some classes I developed over years, but generally I just do my analyses using SAS/AF as a vehicle.

Is there any tricks to make it easier to transition to SAS/Studio for such users?  

Perhaps ways to convert SCL methods into DS2 code?

[ballardw]

Do you have the code involved for those methods? If not then this will be pointless project.

Any data manipulation should be possible but tranferring widgets such as drop down lists or push buttons likely is not going to be easy if at all possible.

[SASKiwi]

Only non-screen based methods are likely to work. You can only start an SCL method in SAS code as there is no command line in SAS Studio. SCL catalogs would need to be stored in a folder accessible to the SAS App server.

You would still need SAS Display Manager on a PC for maintaining the SCL.  

[LinusH · Accepted solution]

As @ballardw and @SASKiwi already pointed out, reuse of this is probably out of the question. The only way I can see calls to these methods are through PROC DISPLAY, and integrate that into SAS Studio...nah.

Not aware of any migration tricks. Of course you can use the existing SCL as inspiration/requirements for implementation (rewrite) in other SAS components. But which, depends on what those methods do. Macro, SAS Studio tasks, snippets...

[Tom]

Thanks all.  It looks like the solution is to rebuild the methods using newer tools.

It would be interesting if anyone has any success stories of making the transition from using SCL to newer SAS tools.

[SASKiwi]

It's worth mentioning that a lot of SCL functions are useful in the DATA step and macro, especially those related to dealing with SAS datasets or external files.

[AllanBowe]

We just finished a 6 month project converting a 500 user super complex AF / SCL application with 0000's of lines of SCL across hundreds of SAS catalogs.

It was turned into a Stored Process Web Application (using HTML5 to replace frames) and I got rid of the SCL by creating a "transcoding kit" - basically rebuilding all the SCL functions with fcmp, creating method lookups, and exporting all the SLISTS as datasets.  This meant I could literally copy paste the SCL and run it in regular SAS (eg SAS Studio).  It was the only way, given the volume and complexity of the task, without doing a complete rebuild.

You can read more about it here, the slides are attached.