SAS/C Software Overview

SAS/C Compiler and Library

The SAS/C Compiler provides a versatile C development environment for IBM® System/370^TM mainframes. The features of the compiler and library include full compliance with the ANSI standard for the C programming language, and a wealth of library extensions that enable you to fully exploit the power of the mainframe. The SAS/C Compiler has over a decade of proven reliability in the demanding development environments of business, industry, education, and government. One indication of the power and flexibility of the SAS/C Compiler is that SAS Institute has relied on it to engineer the SAS System for Information Delivery.

The primary elements of the SAS/C Compiler are the compiler, debugger and the run-time library. Additionally, the compiler product includes a number of utility programs, as well as several configurations of the run-time library for special environments such as the C Systems Programming Environment (SPE), which allows supervisor calls (SVCs), operating system exits and other routines that are traditionally written in assembler language to be written in C. Although the compiler is heavily oriented for use in large software systems, it is an efficient tool for any software project that is written in the C language.

Traditionally, SAS/C applications have been developed in one of the System/370 operating environments: TSO, CMS, or OS/390 batch. With the introduction of the UNIX System Services subsystem from IBM, the SAS/C Library supports the operating system interface defined by the International Standard Organization (ISO) POSIX 1003.1 standard. This support extends the mainframe development environment to the UNIX System Services shell under OS/390.

The SAS/C Library also provides TCP/IP support with a complete implementation of the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD) UNIX Socket Library interface. The socket library is integrated with SAS/C support for UNIX file I/O to provide the same type of integration between file and network I/O that is available on BSD UNIX systems.

In addition to ISO/ANSI C, traditional UNIX, and POSIX support, the SAS/C Library includes the following special features:

dynamic loading support
inline machine code interface
CMS low-level I/O functions
OS/390 low-level I/O functions
low-level system interfaces
low-level OS/390 multitasking functions
inter-user communications vehicle (IUCV) functions
advanced program-to-program communication/virtual machine (APPC/VM) functions
advanced signal handling, including support for true asynchronous signals and for user-defined signals
the subcommand interface to EXECs and CLISTs
the CMS REXX SAS/C interface.

The interlanguage communication features and the inline machine code interface further extend the capabilities of your SAS/C development projects by enabling you to write complicated multilanguage applications or incorporate machine instructions that cannot normally be generated with a high-level language.

In addition to providing you with an exceptionally powerful C development system, SAS Institute wants to make the distribution of your applications affordable. To facilitate this distribution, you may need to redistribute certain run-time files provided by SAS Institute. Many of these SAS/C programs and libraries are contained in the SAS/C Limited Distribution Library, which is redistributable at no charge. Additional programs and libraries may be redistributed by licensing the SAS/C Redistribution Package. No royalties or notification need be reported to SAS Institute upon your authorized redistribution of these run-time files.

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