11

I have a SAS code that creates a lot of intermediary tables for my calculations. Thing is, I don't really care about this tables after the job is done, I only care to the finals results.

But, everytime I run this code, SAS add all the generated tables do my process flow, turning it into a huge mess (I am talking here of 40+ intermediary tables).

Is there a way to tell SAS not to add some tables to the process flow? Or at least to tell it not to add any tables at all? I am using SAS Enterprise Guide 4.1

Thanks in advance

cake
  • 1,336
  • 1
  • 13
  • 20

3 Answers3

7

Under SAS 9.1.x and 9.2.x (for Windows), it's possible to suppress the display of datasets in SAS client environments by prefixing the dataset name with "_TO". So in your code and/or tasks, you could call all your intemediate datasets _TO<DataSetName>, and they won't clutter up your process flow. But they will still be there and can be referenced in code and tasks.

If you do this and you're using tasks, note that it might be tricky to work out how to use the output data from a task as the input for another, if you can't see the dataset to select it. If you have trouble with this, comment on this post and we can address that.

Note that this "_TO" prefix thing is an undocumented, "hidden" feature that is to be deprecated in 9.3 - see this blog for details.

BellevueBob
  • 9,498
  • 5
  • 29
  • 56
sasfrog
  • 2,410
  • 1
  • 17
  • 28
  • Thank you. I have already read about the _TO Undocumented feature (In the SAS Dummy blog, a great blog BTW), but I didn't knew if this undocumented feature was used at any place. But just a question, when this "feature" become deprecated, it won't cause any code to break, would it? Only the Hidden feature would be affected? – cake Apr 20 '11 at 16:34
  • The 'hidden feature' has nothing to do with code, only with the way the clients work. So no code will break. – sasfrog Apr 20 '11 at 22:47
6

If you set the option "Maximum Number of output data sets to add to the project" (under Results General) to zero, it will not add any datasets to the project, but they'll still be available to view from the Server -> Library view (they'll be added to the flow at the point you request them).

Joe
  • 62,789
  • 6
  • 49
  • 67
  • 1
    Nice one. I never knew about this option. This should probably be the checked answer to the OP's question. – sasfrog Sep 10 '13 at 22:25
5

I know this question is a year and a half old now, but if you are working with intermediate tables that can be deleted after you get the final results, SAS EG has a built in macro you can use for deleting these tables:

%_eg_conditional_dropds([table1], [table2], ... ,[table-n]);
Wh1T3h4Ck5
  • 8,399
  • 9
  • 59
  • 79
Curly_Jefferson
  • 175
  • 1
  • 6