Two (2) questions about Enterprise Guide

[dbdinc]

In EG, how do you search for and find something within your code? The way my EG was installed, it doesn't appear to have any kind of menu bar at the top where I might be able to activate a 'Find' function.

My second question is, when you are in EG, and working in your code, how do you print directly from what you are doing, as opposed to having to copy and paste to Notepad in order to print?

Are my problems possibly related to how EG was installed on my PC?

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[ChrisW75]

Hi DBDINC,
OK, in EG you can find using the standard Ctrl+F to search the code, however, it only searches the currently opened piece of code, there's no option for searching all your code nodes (which is EXTREMELY frustrating).
To print, you should just be able to go File > Print, and it'll print whatever is on the screen at the time, be it code, output or even the process flow (a nice recent addition I think).

If you're missing toolbars, go to View > Toolbars and select the ones you want. I've got Active Data, Control, View and Standard selected, and this is the default for my install.
I hope this helps.

Chris
Business Analyst, Code Monkey, Data Wrangler.
SAS Guru.

 

[dbdinc]

Hi, Chris,

Even if your suggestions don't help, I appreciate your willingness to take the time and effort to provide information and advice.

SAS is frustrating me to no end..... I come from a Microsoft (Access, Excel, SQL), FOCUS and Visual Basic background, with a smattering of JCL and mainframe stuff. Right now, I'm suffering from learning the mechanics and semantics of SAS...i.e., should I use EG, or WRS, or native SAS, and stuff likle that.

So...wehen folk such as yourself offer help, I appreciate it.

 

[dbdinc]

Will your suggestions work if you are in the SAS Code Editor Window?

 

[ChrisW75]

If you mean, the code editor window in SAS/EG then yes. However, if you're talking about the base SAS editor outside of EG, then this is a different application entirely.
I understand your frustrations, it's a bit complicated at the moment.
Basically, when you install SAS, you install an operating environment to run SAS programs in (Base SAS) and a basic front end (the SAS Programme Editor) which allows you to type code and run it and view the log and results etc. For years and years, that was the way you ran SAS. Over the last few years, SAS has bene introducing SAS Enterprise Guide. Initially they said that this was aimed at power users of SAS, people who weren't "proper programmers" but had a good understanding of SAS and how the data works. The old Programme Editor was still the weapon of choice for the programmers and developers. Recently however SAS has started pushing EG more, and in a recent user group meeting, a SAS rep told us that development of the Programme Editor was now stopped. The Programme Editor would still be available, however new syntax highlighting for new commands, and new functionality would not be added to this front end, all future development would be done on EG.
EG is simply the preferred front end of SAS, it's still relatively new, and I think it needs some work to really turn it into a good development environment. It's definitely getting there though.
I'm lucky that I pretty much started programming in VB for a short time, then went into SAS as a trainee, surrounded by experienced SAS programmers, so I got alot of giid exposure early on. Some of the "paradigms" do take a little getting used to.

Chris
Business Analyst, Code Monkey, Data Wrangler.
SAS Guru.

 

[dbdinc]

Shows how much I don't know about SAS .... I meant, when I open a stored process and get into its code, it doesn't look like the find function or print function work. Sorry, I didn't mean the code editor window in SAS/EG. Meant from within a stored process.

My background too is from the Visual Basic, world, with a lot of COBOL and a language called FOCUS. I think, coming from VB, that's what is frustrating.... being able to have decent-looking if-then-end if statements, being able to do quick finds or prints and so on. Trying to unwrap my VB mentality is hurting!

Back to the issue... is there a way from within a stored process in EG, and its code editing, to do a find or a print?

 

[ChrisW75]

Well, I've never used Stored Processes, but I'm guessing that it SHOULD work the same way. I'm guessing though that you've tried this and it doesn't. A quick search on their support site didn't reveal anything. I'd suggest at this point a support request to SAS would be the way to go.

Chris
Business Analyst, Code Monkey, Data Wrangler.
SAS Guru.

 

[dbdinc]

Oh well.... it just seems odd for such an apparently powerful software platform that things are so darn confusing/difficult!

Thanks for replying....I appreciate it.

 

[dbdinc]

Here is what SAS tech support has to say about my two questions:

There is no feature to do a 'find' within the stored process manager within EGuide at the current time. We've had requests for this so hopefully this will be added in a future release.

Also, there is no way to print your code while working on your stored process within the stored process manager, but once your copy and paste the code, you can paste into your code node, File, New, Code, and Print it from there.

Like the Church Lady from Saturday Night Live would say, "Isn't that special?