Usage Note 11201: Warnings about unreferenced variables in the DROP, KEEP, or RENAME statements result in RC=4 in SAS® System 9
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If you reference a nonexistent variable in your DROP, KEEP, or RENAME statement, the SYSERR macro variable will be set based on the setting of the DKRICOND and/or DKROCOND SAS System option settings. On z/OS systems, this affects the return code of the job.
If you have these options set to NOWARN, SYSERR will be set to 0 and the job will end with RC=0. If you have these options set to WARN, SYSERR will be set to 4 and the job will end with RC=4. If you have these options set to ERROR, SYSERR will be set to 1012 and the job will end with RC=8.
The warning/error you get is similar to the following:
WARNING/ERROR: THE VARIABLE variablename IN THE DROP, KEEP, OR RENAME LIST HAS NEVER BEEN REFERENCED
Because of a problem in Version 6 or Version 8, those releases did not behave in this manner. In Version 6 and Version 8, SYSERR was not being set to a non-zero value when these warnings or errors were issued. For z/OS systems, this means that the return code was 0 even though it had a warning or error in the SAS Log. SAS 9 exhibits the correct behavior. This problem is referenced by V6 SAS Note 4533.
For more information about the DKRICOND and DKROCOND options, refer to the online documentation:
Operating System and Release Information
| Product Family | Product | System | SAS Release | |
| Reported | Fixed* | |||
| SAS System | Base SAS | z/OS | 9 TS M0 | |
| Type: | Usage Note |
| Priority: | |
| Topic: | SAS Reference ==> Procedures ==> OPTIONS |
| Date Modified: | 2005-07-20 13:17:37 |
| Date Created: | 2003-11-05 11:33:19 |