Sorry, I should have specified, that the log I am writing to is an external log, a MS SQL table.   I have a SAS macro executing different SAS programs, my own or from others. The macro then write the status of the execution to this extermal log (sucess/failure and optionally an error message). However, if the error initiate an OBS = 0, nothing is written to the log. As I beforehand don't know where and what kind of error, I need a general prevention of setting OBS = 0.   Example:   ERROR 76-322: Syntax error, statement will be ignored. NOTE: The SAS System stopped processing this step because of errors. NOTE: Due to ERROR(s) above, SAS set option OBS=0, enabling syntax check mode. This prevents execution of subsequent data modification statements. WARNING: The data set WORK.BACT may be incomplete. When this step was stopped there were 0 observations and 5 variables. WARNING: Data set WORK.BACT was not replaced because this step was stopped. NOTE: DATA statement used (Total process time): real time 0.00 seconds cpu time 0.00 seconds   ... View more