Saving output twice (can FILE command do this?)

[jonnysnow]

I have a program that produces formatted output. What I want is to have SAS (1) send the output to the printer, and (2) save a copy of the formatted output.

I figured out how to send output to the printer--

filename laserjet printer;

data rpt1;
file laserjet;
put .....
put .....
.........

Is there any way to get SAS to also save this output to a file without repeating the DATA step? This DATA step modifies the input data, so if I just ran it a second time, it wouldn't work.

I know I can always save a copy of the input before it's modified. But if anyone has a better way, please let me know.

Thanks!

 

[klaz2002]

Why not change the sequence. First, send it to a file (text...) and then have a small data _null_ that sends the text file to a printer.

filename yourfile "c:\test.txt";
filename laserjet printer;

data rpt1;
file yourfile;
put .....;
...
run;

***SEND TO PRINTER;
data _null_;
infile yourfile;
file laserjet;
input;
put _input_;
run;

I haven't checked this but it should work. Let me know if you solve this.
I hope that this helps.
Klaz

 

[jonnysnow]

That's terrific! It works beautifully.

One syntax correction. It's:
put _infile_; (not: put _input_)

 

[klaz2002]

Yes I missed that. It is put _infile_.
Sorry.
Klaz

 

[ChrisW75]

An alternative method which will save you some CPU cycles:-

filename yourfile "c:\test.txt";
filename laserjet printer;

data _null_;
set my_dset;
file laserjet;
put ...;

file yourfile;
put ...;

run;

This'll save you reading in the same file twice, which is good if the dataset is particularly large. I played around with putting both filenames on the same file statement, but that didn't work unfortunately.

An alternative method is to use ODS. ODS allows you to have 2 output destinations open at the same time.

Something like :-

ODS PRINTER ....;
ODS CSV file="c:\myfile";

proc print data=my_dset;
run;

ODS CSV close
ODS PRINTER close;

You'll need to look up the proper syntax for ODS PRINTER though.

Enjoy.