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Hot Topics

• Updates for SAS 9.2 (March 2008)
  See the compatibility calculator to determine whether you need to migrate your libraries to SAS 9.2. Use the PROC MIGRATE calculator to find the right example code for your migration.
  
  
• Get a Smarter COMPARE
  Validation tools for the MIGRATE procedure now work with CEDA and provide additional details about catalogs, indexes, and integrity constraints.
  
  
• Start Planning
  See Getting Started for the most efficient pathway through all of the SAS®9 migration documentation.
  
  
• Coexistence
  Many SAS®9 products can install side-by-side with SAS 8.2 with very good compatibility. See Peaceful Coexistence: SAS®9 and SAS 8.2 for details.
  
  
• Sample Validation SOP
  See an example SOP: SAS Installation Qualification / Operational Qualification (PDF) (updated 19 May 2008) for the pharmaceutical industry.

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Migration

Updating SAS Code

SAS programs are commonly saved as text files, with a .SAS file extension, to be run in batch mode. You might also own custom applications that contain SAS code. PROC MIGRATE does not move SAS programs to the target installation. Instead, you must use your normal transfer tool, such as an FTP tool.

Whenever you move existing SAS programs to a different installation, you might have to tweak the code to make it run correctly. This topic covers the changes to make for SAS®9 and for the particulars of the target operating environment. For other SAS products, see Product-Specific Compatibility Issues.

Compatibility Issues

Here are the few known compatibility issues. Programs that you created in a previous version of SAS will run correctly in the target SAS®9 installation when you make the following changes.

z/OS

See also z/OS Compatibility Issues for additional changes that are specific to the z/OS family.

Hardcoded values

Fix any hardcoded values such as pathnames, engine names, values specific to the operating environment, and so forth.

• Pathnames can appear many language elements, for example, SAS options; LIBNAME, FILENAME, FILE, and INFILE statements; and FILENAME and PATHNAME functions, to name just a few. Also look for pathnames in macro variables.
• When you use PROC MIGRATE, embedded librefs associated with a SAS data view are not changed when migrated.
• You might choose to specify the engine name in a program to get version-specific processing, for example, the V6 compatibility engine.
• If you alter or update the operating environment, then any SAS code that directly calls operating environment commands (for example, manipulating files, printing) must be recoded to the new operating environment's commands. See your SAS Companion for language elements that are specific to an operating environment.

SAS macros

Beginning in SAS 9.1, the IN (#) operator is supported in macro expressions. SAS 9.0 and previous versions did not support it. Because IN and # now have meaning to the expression evaluator, any time these values appear in an expression context and are not meant as the IN operator, you must quote the values using either one of the macro quoting functions or double quotation marks. For example, the expressions

   &state=in
   &var = #

must be recoded as

   %quote(&state) = %quote(in)
   %quote(&var) = %quote(#)

or

   "&state"="in"
   "&var" = "#"

Output Delivery System (ODS)

Starting in SAS 9.1, ODS generates HTML 4.0 output by default instead of HTML 3.2 when you issue the ODS HTML statement. This can be important, for example, when you use the NOTOP argument. Some formatting specifications have been moved to the cascading style sheet (CSS). Therefore, if your code includes NOTOP, then you do not get the CSS formatting unless you specify the HTML 3.2 standards.

If this is an issue, then your choices are to update existing ODS code to the HTML 4.0 standard, or to issue the ODS HTML3 statement, or to toggle the registry entry to HTML3 (which makes it the default).

For more differences in ODS between SAS 8.2 and SAS 9.1, see the paper A Soft Landing to ODS 9.1.

National language support (NLS)

If you take advantage of the multilingual capabilities of SAS, see information about a few migration issues that are a result of SAS®9 enhancements.

SAS®9 changes and enhancements

• Refer to the SAS Procedures Guide and Language Reference: Dictionary for any functionality changes in procedures, statements, and options. For example, in the APPEND statement of the DATASETS procedure, the default append behavior changed to improve performance, beginning in Version 7. If the old behavior is required for some reason, you can specify APPENDVER=V6.
  
  
• If you don't migrate your data to SAS®9 format, beware of using any new functionality in your SAS programs and applications that does not work against the old SAS files. For example, the DATECOPY option is not supported when you use the COPY procedure and the XPORT engine to create a Version 6 or 7 file; and longer format or informat names are not supported in releases prior to SAS®9. For a brief summary of compatibility issues, see the topics that link from SAS®9 Compatibility, and refer to SAS documentation for full details.
  
  
• See also product-specific compatibility issues.

User-defined names

For every SAS release since your source installation, see the What's New documentation for new functions, CALL routines, macros, formats, and informats. SAS names generally take precedence over user-defined names. In other words, if your existing SAS code contains a user-defined name, and that name is identical to a new SAS name, then you might encounter an error.