SAS Companion for the Microsoft Windows Environment

Autocall Libraries

This section discusses the system dependencies of using autocall libraries. For general information, see the SAS Macro Language: Reference.

An autocall library contains files that define SAS macros. SAS Institute supplies some autocall macros. To use the autocall facility, you must have the SAS system option MAUTOSOURCE set. When the SAS System is installed, the SASAUTOS system option is used in the SAS configuration file to tell the SAS System where to find the default macros supplied by the Institute. You can also define your own autocall macros and store them in a Windows directory.

If you store autocall macros in a Windows directory, the file extension must be .SAS. Each macro file in the directory must contain a macro definition with a macro name the same as the filename. For example, a file named PRTDATA.SAS stored in a directory must define a macro named PRTDATA.

SASAUTOS System Option

To use your own autocall macros in your SAS programs, you must tell the SAS System where to find them using the SASAUTOS system option. The syntax of the SASAUTOS option is given in SASAUTOS.

You can set the SASAUTOS system option when you start the SAS System, or you can use it in an OPTIONS statement during your SAS session. You should edit your SAS configuration file to add your autocall library to the library concatenation supplied by SAS Institute, as in the following example:

-sasautos (c:\mymacros
          !sasroot\core\sasmacro
          !sasroot\base\sasmacro
          !sasroot\stat\sasmacro
          more library specifications
          )

Autocall libraries are searched in the order you specify them. So if you use the above SASAUTOS option setting and call a macro named PRTDATA, the directory C:\MYMACROS is searched for the macro; then each of the !SASROOT libraries is searched.

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