Essential Concepts of Base SAS Software

Customizing Your SAS Session

You can use a configuration file to store system options with the settings that you want. When you invoke SAS, these settings are in effect. SAS system options determine how SAS initializes its interfaces with your computer hardware and the operating environment, how it reads and writes data, how output appears, and other global functions.

By placing SAS system options in a configuration file, you can avoid having to specify the options every time that you invoke SAS. For example, you can specify the NODATE system option in your configuration file to prevent the date from appearing at the top of each page of your output.

Operating Environment Information: See the SAS documentation for your operating environment for more information about the configuration file. In some operating environments, you can use both a system-wide and a user-specific configuration file. [cautionend]

Executing Statements Automatically

To execute SAS statements automatically each time you invoke SAS, store them in an autoexec file. SAS executes the statements automatically after the system is initialized. You can activate this file by specifying the AUTOEXEC= system option.

Any SAS statement can be included in an autoexec file. For example, you can set report titles, footnotes, or create macros or macro variables automatically with an autoexec file.

Operating Environment Information: See the SAS documentation for your operating environment for information on how autoexec files should be set up so that they can be located by SAS. [cautionend]

Customizing the SAS Windowing Environment

You can customize many aspects of the SAS windowing environment and store your settings for use in future sessions. With the SAS windowing environment, you can

change the appearance and sorting order of items in the Explorer window
customize the Explorer window by registering member, entry, and file types
set up favorite folders
customize the toolbar
set fonts, colors, and preferences.

See the SAS online Help for more information and for additional ways to customize your SAS windowing environment.

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