System Options under UNIX

STIMER System Option: UNIX

Specifies whether to write a subset of system performance statistics to the SAS log.

Default:	STIMER
Valid in:	configuration file, SAS invocation, OPTIONS statement, SASV9_OPTIONS environment variable
Category:	Log and procedure output control: SAS log
PROC OPTIONS GROUP=	LOGCONTROL
UNIX specifics:	all

Syntax
Details
See Also

Syntax

-STIMER | -NOSTIMER

STIMER | NOSTIMER

STIMER: writes only real time and CPU time to the SAS log.
NOSTIMER: does not write any statistics to the SAS log.

Details

The STIMER system option specifies whether a subset of all the performance statistics of your system that are available to SAS are written to the SAS log. The following is an example of STIMER output:

STIMER Output

real time   1.34 seconds
cpu time    0.04 seconds

STIMER displays the following statistics:

Description of STIMER Statistics
Statistic	Description
real time	the amount of time spent to process the SAS job. Real time is also referred to as elapsed time.
CPU time	the total time spent to execute your SAS code and to perform system overhead tasks on behalf of the SAS process. This value is the combination of the user CPU and system CPU statistics from FULLSTIMER.

If both STIMER and FULLSTIMER are set, the FULLSTIMER statistics are printed.

Note: Starting in SAS 9, some procedures use multiple threads. On computers with multiple CPUs, the operating system can run more than one thread simultaneously. Consequently, CPU time might exceed real time in your STIMER output.

For example, a SAS procedure could use two threads that run on two separate CPUs simultaneously. The value of CPU time would be calculated as the following:

CPU1 time + CPU2 time = total CPU time
1 second + 1 second = 2 seconds

Because CPU1 can run a thread at the same time that CPU2 runs a separate thread, you can theoretically consume 2 CPU seconds in 1 second of real time. [cautionend]