Although most of the settings can be created / modified within a SAS session, we recommend to start the SAS with all environment variables already defined, eg via a startup script as described under 2.3.
It is convenient to create a directory which will hold the processing results and to run the SAS within this current directory:
mkdir mydata cd mydata sas &
The command sas launches the main SAS GUI.
Using the preferences dialog in the file Menu of the SAS GUI it is possible
to set or reset the
environment variables pointing to the ODF Summary file or directory, to the CCF
index file, to the directory(ies) containing the calibration files and to the
working directory. In addition the verbosity level
(determining the debug level
of the tasks, 0
low, 10maximum) can be set as well as the
memory model to be used (see section 2.7).
The upper half of the main window is the task browser. One can click on the column headings to sort the tasks in various ways. Double-click on a task to enter the parameters in the dedicated GUI of that task.
The parameter dialog allows to configure the parameters of a task before running it.
If the task requires input data they can be selected by popping up a dataset browser. This allows to browse through the file hierarchy and select SAS datasets or individual components, such as tables, arrays or columns.
When the parameters have been configured, press the `Run' button to execute the task. It is possible to kill a task from the Task menu.
The lower half of the main GUI window is a log pane, which displays messages from the task. Check that the task ran successfully. If the task produced any warning or error messages, those will be displayed in a dialog box.
The results from a task will be written into the current directory, unless it is specified a path for the output files. These files tipically form the input to the next task, when running a sequence of processing steps.
One can enter parameters in preparation for the next task, before the current task has finished. It is possible to queue the task for execution when the current task finishes (see section 3.6).
When the processing session is finished, the log provides a record of the steps carried out, with all parameters and any messages received from the tasks. This log can be saved for future reference. Scripts can also be constructed from those single calls.
The log is automatically saved in the file sas_log in the current directory. It can also be printed out from the `File' menu or tool bar.
The environment variable SAS_SUPPRESS_WARNING (by default set to a value of 1 in the SAS initialization) set the maximum number of occurrences a specific warning shall appear in the log (and in the corresponding warning windows if run from the GUI). If set to the value 0 only the summary for each warning will be written to the log instead. In all cases a summary line specifying the number of occurrences for each issued warning is written to the logfile.
The SAS GUI provides yellow tool tips which pop up when the cursor is placed over an item. The main window has a help tool, in the tool bar; select the help tool and click it on an item to obtain more detailed help. Finally, the Help menu provides access to the on-line documentation. See Using on-line help for further details.