SAS System Options under Windows

FULLSTIMER System Option: Windows

Specifies whether to write all available system performance statistics to the SAS log.

Default:	NOFULLSTIMER
Valid in:	configuration file, SAS invocation, OPTIONS statement, SAS System Options window
Category:	Log and procedure output control: SAS log
PROC OPTIONS GROUP=	LOGCONTROL
Windows specifics:	all

Syntax
Details
Comparisons
See Also

Syntax

-FULLSTIMER | -NOFULLSTIMER

FULLSTIMER | NOFULLSTIMER

FULLSTIMER: specifies that SAS write to the SAS log a complete list of computer resources that were used for each step and for the entire SAS session.
NOFULLSTIMER: specifies that SAS not write a complete list of computer resources to the SAS log. NOFULLSTIMER is the default.

Details

The FULLSTIMER system option specifies whether all the performance statistics of your computer system that are available to SAS are written to the SAS log.

This system option gives you time-elapsed statistics if you have not turned off the STIMER option. If you turn off the STIMER option, the FULLSTIMER option does not generate time statistics.

If you need statistics on tasks such as the SAS windowing environment (statistics for the windowing environment are available only when SAS terminates), you should use the ALTLOG System Option: Windows to specify the destination for a copy of the SAS log. If you specify the FULLSTIMER system option before you end your SAS session, you can view statistics for the SAS windowing environment at the destination that you specified.

The following is an example of the statistics that the SAS log displays when the FULLSTIMER option is on:

NOTE: There were 5 observations read from the data set MYSAS.DEPART1. 
NOTE: PROCEDURE PRINT used (Total process time):       
      real time           0.96 seconds       
      user cpu time       0.01 seconds       
      system cpu time     0.15 seconds       
      Memory              83k                
      OS Memory           4648k

FULLSTIMER displays the following statistics:

Description of FULLSTIMER Statistics
Statistic	Description
Real-Time	the amount of time spent to process the SAS job. Real-time is also referred to as elapsed time.
User CPU Time	the CPU time spent to execute SAS code.
System CPU Time	the CPU time spent to perform operating system tasks (system overhead tasks) that support the execution of SAS code
Memory	the amount of memory required to run a step.
OS Memory	the maximum amount of memory that a step requested from the System.

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 FULLSTIMER output. [cautionend]

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

Since CPU1 can run a thread at the same time that CPU2 runs a separate thread for the same SAS process, you can theoretically consume 2 CPU seconds in 1 second of real-time.

Comparisons

The FULLSTIMER system option specifies whether all of the available performance statistics are written to the SAS log. The STIMER system option specifies whether time-elapsed statistics for DATA steps or PROC steps are written to the SAS log.