My administrator is also new to SAS. Is there a typical path or location where the config file can be found?   That is possibility. I'm hoping that even if OPTMODEL can't complete to optimality we will be at least be able to get some good feasible solutions at the model's current level of complexity to compare with any simpler models that we are able to solve to optimality. ... View more

Now that I have a better idea of what I needed to ask, I went back and restated my problem.   Is the GEODIST function an "as the crow flies" type of calculation, or does it use road networks like Google does? Additionally, even though it's called a Distance Matrix the Google API provides travel time durations as well. Does GEODIST or some other SAS function provide travel time durations too or strictly distances? ... View more

At the suggestion of others, I'll restate my initial problem.   I have two tables of location data, one origins and one destinations. One of the columns in both of these tables is lat_longs containing latitude and longitudes in the form for example: 40.77657419,-73.87393838 40.76251880,-73.98145280 40.77657419,-73.87393838 ...   I want to use these lat-longs in a proc http call to a Google Distance Matrix API that has the url format: url="https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/distancematrix/json?units=imperial&origins=lat1,long1|lat2,long2|...|latn,longn&destinations=lat1,long1|lat2,long2|...|latn,longn&key=<API_KEY>" The individual lat-longs already are combined with a  the comma between them as desired, but we need to combine the separate lat-longs with a '|' character and then reference them in the url. Additionally, the syntax for Google's url use the "&" character which I now see needs to be masked during macro compilation.   Building on PaigeMiller's reply, I think this code is sufficient for the problem.   proc sql; select distinct Lat_long into :origins separated by '|' from Location_Data1; quit; proc sql; select distinct Lat_long into :destinations separated by '|' from Location_Data2; quit; filename resp temp; proc http url="https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/distancematrix/json?units=imperial/%nrstr(&)origins=&origins%nrstr(&)destinations=&destinations%nrstr(&)key=<API_KEY>" out=resp; run; libname posts JSON fileref=resp; title "Raw values from the JSON response"; proc datasets lib=posts; quit; run; This creates tables Elements_Distance and Elements_Duration in the Posts library each with column "value" that contains the distances/durations. ... View more

Thank you for the input everyone. I have come up with something that seems to accomplish what I need.   proc sql; select distinct Lat_long into :origins separated by '|' from Location_Data1; quit; proc sql; select distinct Lat_long into :destinations separated by '|' from Location_Data2; quit; %macro prochttp_check_return(code); %if %symexist(SYS_PROCHTTP_STATUS_CODE) ne 1 %then %do; %put ERROR: Expected &code., but a response was not received from the HTTP Procedure; %abort; %end; %else %do; %if &SYS_PROCHTTP_STATUS_CODE. ne &code. %then %do; %put ERROR: Expected &code., but received &SYS_PROCHTTP_STATUS_CODE. &SYS_PROCHTTP_STATUS_PHRASE.; %abort;%end; %end; %mend; filename resp temp; proc http url="https://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/distancematrix/json?units=imperial/%nrstr(&)origins=&origins%nrstr(&)destinations=&destinations%nrstr(&)key=<API_KEY>" out=resp; run; %prochttp_check_return(200); libname posts JSON fileref=resp; title "Raw values from the JSON response"; proc datasets lib=posts; quit; proc print data=posts.alldata(obs=20); run; where Location_Data1 and Location_Data2 have a column Lat_Long with data in the format 40.77657419,-73.87393838 40.75656710,-73.98876790 40.74172450,-73.98351730 ... ... View more

Thank you. I was hesitant to simply repeat a prior question and expect a better answer, but what you've provided makes a lot of sense. There wouldn't actually be stray spaces, those are just for the legibility of the placeholder text. Handling a separate set of destinations is simple enough. The commas will be a challenge though. ... View more

I have things to the point where I've been able to construct my url variable in the correct format. Proc http expects the url as a quoted string. Do you know how I might be able to pass this variable into Proc http as a url? ... View more

The vagueness was somewhat purposeful. I have asked this question with all the details before and was provided with a fairly complex but similarly case to pattern match from and didn't get a good sense of how it would work from a fundamental level.   The values are lat longs from a table of locations. The lat longs will go into the URL for a proc http request to a Google Distance Matrix API. The requests would end up having a format like this:   proc http url="< https:// base url here > / &origins=lat1,long1|lat2,long2|...|latn,longn&destinations=lat1,long1|lat2,long2|...|latm,longm &key=<API_Key >" out=resp; run;   I would know how long each lat long would be and I know that there's a limit around 8000 characters on the length of the url for any request.   ... View more

I will be making a proc http request. I have data in columns that I need to put into that particular structure to make the request. ... View more

Thank you for the replies on this. I think this approach should end up working for me. I had to put in a replace clause in the statement that saves the table to a physical copy for when the data is refreshed. I am getting a similar error "The target table newtable of the promotion already exists. Please specify a different name." on the statement proc casutil; promote casdata='newtable' incaslib='casuser'; quit; I see that this statement does not also have a replace clause and recommends dropping then doing a new promote. I'm not clear on how to do this, I've run into errors like "There is no session-scope table newtable in caslib" or once that reads the same as above. What would be a way to modify the program to adjust for replacing when data is refreshed?   ... View more