What's New in the SAS 9.4 Windows Companion

Overview

SAS under Windows enables you to complete your data and computation tasks in SAS while integrating with the Windows applications that are already in place on your desktop, within your desktop, and within your enterprise. SAS supports information sharing through Windows tools and techniques.

General Enhancements

The following enhancements are implemented for SAS 9.4:
  • The content in Choosing a Location for the Sorted File has been modified to better explain the sort actions.
  • References to the GIMPORT procedure have been removed. GIMPORT does not work with the new TrueType fonts.
  • An appendix, Troubleshooting Java Runtime Environment Errors, has been removed. The instructions are in the SAS note that is located at http://support.sas.com/kb/48/548.html.
  • Extended attributes are described in SAS Data Sets (Member Type: Data or View).
  • The default value of the LRECL= option is 32767.
  • A chapter, “Using Lotus Notes to Distribute SAS Data under Windows,” has been removed. Lotus Notes is not supported on WX6.
  • Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, and Windows Vista are no longer supported. Supported Windows Editions are listed in SAS Runs in Enterprise Environments.
  • In the first maintenance release for SAS 9.4, details have been added in support of Windows 32-bit architecture.
  • Also, in the first maintenance release for SAS 9.4, the accessibility topic was removed. The revised accessibility topic is available on the Base product page.
  • In the first maintenance release for SAS 9.4, an appendix Sasiotest Utility has been added.
  • In the second maintenance release for SAS 9.4, Using EBCDIC Data on ASCII Systems has been added.
In the fourth maintenance release for SAS 9.4, the following enhancements have been made:

Documentation Enhancements

The documentation for the TOOLSMENU and VIEWMENU system options is now located in the SAS Companion for Windows. The documentation was removed from the SAS System Options: Reference.

Cleanwork Utility

In the second maintenance release for SAS 9.4, the Cleanwork utility was updated. It is now a console-based application and is installed as part of Base SAS in the SASROOT directory. For more information, see Cleanwork Utility.
In the fourth maintenance release for SAS 9.4, this note was added: The Cleanwork utility is available beginning with the second maintenance release of SAS 9.4.

Functions

In the first maintenance release for SAS 9.4, the following interaction was added to the PEEKLONG function: “When a SAS server is in a locked-down state, the PEEKLONG function does not execute.” For more information, see PEEKLONG Function: Windows.

Statements

In the second maintenance release for SAS 9.4, the PERMISSION option was added to the following statements: FILE statement and FILENAME statement.
In the second maintenance release for SAS 9.4, the following FILENAME statement access methods are not available when SAS is in a locked-down state. For more information, see the FILENAME statement.
  • EMAIL
  • FTP
  • Hadoop
  • SOCKET
  • URL
However, your server administrator can re-enable the access method so that it is accessible in the locked-down state.

System Options

The Summary of System Options table has been replaced with the SAS System Options by Category table .
The following system options are new:
ALIGNSASIOFILES
Aligns the pages of data in a SAS data set.
FILELOCKWAIT
Sets the number of seconds that SAS waits for a locked file to become available.
HOSTINFOLONG
Specifies to write additional operating environment information in the SAS log when SAS starts.
In the second maintenance release for SAS 9.4, the following tip was added to the RTRACELOC system option: “You can expand the RTRACELOC filename when %p (pid), %d (date), %t (time) are specified.” For more information, see RTRACELOC System Option: Windows.
In the second maintenance release for SAS 9.4, the default value was changed to 1G in the SORTSIZE option. For more information see SORTSIZE System Option: Windows.
In the third maintenance release for SAS 9.4, the default value for the MVARSIZE system option was changed to 65534 bytes. For more information, see MVARSIZE System Option: Windows.
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