The PAUSE statement interrupts the execution of a module.

The arguments to the PAUSE statement are as follows:

expression

is a character matrix or quoted literal that contains a message to print.

*

suppresses any messages.

The PAUSE statement stops execution of a module, saves the calling chain so that execution can resume later (by a RESUME statement), prints a pause message that you can specify, and puts you in immediate mode so you can enter more statements.

You can specify an operand in the PAUSE statement to supply a message to be printed for the pause prompt. If no operand is specified, the following default message is printed:

   Paused in module XXX.

In this case, XXX is the name of the module that contains the pause. If you want to suppress all messages in a PAUSE statement, use an asterisk as the operand, as follows:

   pause *;

The PAUSE statement should be specified only in modules. It generates a warning if executed in immediate mode.

When an error occurs while executing inside a module, PROC IML automatically behaves as though a PAUSE statement was issued. The following note is displayed in the SAS Log:

   Paused in module XXX.

PROC IML also enters "immediate mode" within the module environment. You can correct the error and then resume execution by issuing a RESUME command.

PROC IML supports pause processing of both subroutine and function modules. See also the description of the SHOW statement which uses the PAUSE option.