The RLANG System Option

The RLANG system option determines whether you have permission to call R from the SAS system. You can determine the value of the RLANG option by submitting the following SAS statements:

proc options option=RLANG;
run;

The result is one of the following statements in the SAS log:

NORLANG   Do not support access to R language interfaces

If the SAS log contains this statement, you do not have permission to call R from the SAS system.

RLANG   Support access to R language interfaces

If the SAS log contains this statement, you can call R from the SAS system.

The RLANG option can be changed only at SAS start-up. In order to call R, the SAS system must be launched with the -RLANG option. (It is often convenient to insert this option in a SASV9.CFG file.) For security reasons, some system administrators configure the SAS system to start with the -NORLANG option. The RLANG option is similar to the XCMD option in that both options enable SAS users to potentially write or delete important data and system files.

If you attempt to submit R statements on a system that was not launched with the -RLANG option, you get the following error message:

ERROR: The RLANG system option must be specified in the SAS configuration file or on the SAS invocation command line to enable the submission of R language statements.

Some operating systems do not support the RLANG system option. The RLANG system option is currently supported for the Windows operating system. If you attempt to submit R statements on a host that does not support the RLANG option, you get the following warning message:

WARNING: SAS option RLANG is not supported on this host.