SAS/CONNECT User's Guide

General Script Statement Rules

To write a script, you need to read about the specific information for each statement in the script. This section contains general rules that apply to some or all script statements. Each statement description in Script Statements indicates the applicable access method. In addition, Summary of Script Statements shows the access method for which each script statement is effective. A script statement that is not valid for your access method is ignored.

Syntax

All script statements must end with a semicolon.
Script statements have a free format, which means that there are no spacing or indention requirements. A statement can be split across several lines, or one line can contain one or more statements. Statement keywords can be in uppercase, lowercase, or mixed case.
Text strings that are enclosed in quotation marks are case sensitive. For example, if your script defines a text string in a WAITFOR statement, be sure that the uppercase and lowercase letters in the text string exactly match the text string from the remote host.
Any script statement can include a label specification. The label must be a valid SAS name, with a maximum of eight characters. The first character must be a letter or underscore. A label must be followed immediately by a colon (:) and must be defined only one time in the script.
Some script statements specify a time in seconds. The form of the time specification is

n SECONDS;
where n can be any number; this number may include decimal fractions. For example, all of the following time specifications are valid:

0 SECONDS;

0.25 SECONDS;

1 SECOND;

3.14 SECONDS;

SECOND is an alias for SECONDS.
If a script statement specifies a quoted string, such as a remote host command, you can use either single or double quotes. To embed quotes in script statements, follow the same rules that you use for embedded quotes in SAS statements.

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	0 SECONDS;
	0.25 SECONDS;
	1 SECOND;
	3.14 SECONDS;