Beginning Tutorials AN INTRODUCTION TO SAS-L AND OTHER INTERNET RESOURCES FOR THE SAS® USER David G. Carroll, New York State Governor's Office of Employee Relations Abstract information about SAS® software and programming. It is also a user group officially What is SAS-L? How do 'lists' operate? Anyone recognized by SAS Institute. In the spring of can share in the collective SAS® knowledge of 1994, this user group had more than 1100 users from around the world. Subscribing and subscribers from 30 different countries. If you'd posting to SAS-L and searching the SAS-L like to get a more current count, I'll describe the archives are described. The various forms of listserv command that I used when I get into the electronic communication with the SAS mechanics of using lists. SAS-L members Institute are explained. The paper concludes receive all "posts" or messages from other with a sampling of ways to explore the Internet. members to the list, and they are able to send replies to these or messages of their own. As this description implies, SAS-L is a high What is SAS-L? volume list, averaging perhaps sixty messages each day. This may sound daunting, but most SAS-L is, first of all, a BITNET list. Of course email systems allow a user to delete messages that answer only generates two inore questions, not of interest rather quickly. Proper use of the what is BITNET and what is a 'list'? BIlNET subject line makes this fairly convenient. (Because It's Time Network) is a part of the collection of computer networks known as "the What is 'posted' to SAS-L? Net" which are generally (and inaccurately) all thought of as the Internet. The Net is literally a The most common types are requests for help global link of computer users. with a SAS® problem, answers to such pleas, or thank-yous for the assistance. When do you What is a "list"? It's an electronic mailing list resort to SAS-L for such help? You've RTFM'd, that is automated to one degree or another with Read the Friendly Manuals, but you're still at a computer software. Also called 'listservs' or loss. Maybe you've asked some of the other 'listservers', they are each devoted to a particular SAS® users at your site to no avail. You've got topic. A computer user with access (of a wide a deadline; you need that answer. Don't worry. variety of forms) to the Net sends a command Help is at hand. Members ofSAS-L are ready with the proper syntax to a particular address and willing to solve that thorny problem, usually (an ID at a "node" of the Net) in order to join a complete with a useful snippet of example code. list of interest. More on the mechanics of this later, but let's go back to our original question Most members of this list like to try to answer a about SAS-L. question if they can. Why? It's their chance to show others how clever they are, to enlighten Besides the technical answer that SAS-L is a the masses, or balance the cosmic scale for that Bitnet list, there are a couple of more useful help they got last week. Why ask why? Just do definitions. It is a forum for exchange of it. Any member of the list can vouch for the fact 125 Beginning Tutorials that you'll probably get an answer and save nodes (with location if known) are: yourself time and grief. MARIST.BITNET (Marist College, There are other types of posts as well - Poughkeepsie, NY) announcements of conferences (SUGI, NESUG, UGA.BITNET (Georgia - in the USA) etc.), discussions about SAS Institute policies UALTAVM.BITNET (Alberta, CA) (often heated! e.g. pricing and licensing VTVMl.BITNET arrangements), ideas for features we'd like to see A WIlMC12.BITNET in the software, and occasional job announcements. After sending the 'subscribe' command, you'll get back an acknowledgement and some information on the settings for your How do I join? subscription. One of these that should be mentioned is 'nomail'. If you're going away for The first step is access to the Net. If you work a while and don't want to have a stuffed mailbox at a major corporation, government, or academic when you come back, send your SAS-L listserv institution, you can probably get top-notch the following command: access. Anyone can get some access through large commercial providers such as Compuserve set SAS-L nomail or Delphi. For some more details on this, see the excellent paper by Michael Davis, "The I mentioned a command with which you can see One-Eyed Guide to Internet, E-mail, how many members SAS-L has and what LISTSERV, and SAS-L", presented at SUGI 18. countries are represented. This command also gets sent to your SAS-L listserv: Once you have Net access, joining is simple. Send a command to the listserv ID at one of the review SAS-L by country nodes that runs SAS-L ( e.g. [email protected] ) with the following This will return a file from each of the peered syntax: SAS-L hosts, and by combining these, you can detennine the membership and countries. subscribe SAS-L Firstname Lastname Posting to SAS-L with your own name substituted in the obvious spots. You've subscribed, you've been reading tlle posts of interest, and now you've got a question What nodes ron SAS-L? to ask. How do you get it to SAS-L? Most email systems include an editor for composing a SAS-L is a "Peered List". Many of the larger, short message. Thankfully most also include a high volume lists have used this set-up for better way to pull in a file you previously wrote or efficiency. Essentially a number of nodes each modified in a real editor. It is helpful to include runs SAS-L, and they share all posts to any of a short excerpt of SAS@ code and the log along the nodes. In general, you should subscribe to with your note. Whatever the mechanics of the one closest to you. Currently the SAS-L peer setting up this message in your particular email 126 Beginning Tutorials system, after you've gotten it ready, you need to before asking that question. send it not to the listserv but to the list itself (e.g. [email protected]). Remember that How to Search the Archives commands to set up or alter your subscription go to the listserv (and stop there) while posts to Not alilistservs are archived due to disk space the lists go to SAS-L (and are then distributed to and other resource considerations, but many lists all members.) If you confuse this, either the including SAS-L are archived and can be Iistserv will "bounce" your post as a bad searched with a standard software. This is part command, or, much more embarassingly, your of the listserv. To get complete instructions on attempt to set nomail will be sent to 1100 searching a listserv database, send a message people. Don't worry. We've all gotten that sort with the following command in the body: of egg on our faces. info database C=mail It's Nice to Say Thanks The last part tells the listserv to return the reply The etiquette of SAS-L generally indicates that to you as a mail message. This may be you should thank those who took the time and necessary if you are accessing the listserv from trouble to help you. This gives them some anywhere except another Bitnet node. You'll recognition among fellow users and shows get back the full instructions for building more others both that help was found and that it was complicated search queries, but for now, I'll give appreciated - good for encouraging continued you a simple example. A message should be help. sent to your SAS-L listserv (e.g. Iistserv@marist) with the following text in the Many times you'll get several very different body: approaches to solving the problem, and sometimes the replies are sent not to SAS-L but 1/ JOB Echo=No directly to your email address. A summary of Database Search DD=Rules these approaches is often useful. Some people l!Rules DD * even run little benchmark tests to try to judge Search search-tenn in SAS-L from 90/03/01 the relative efficiency of the solutions, and this Index often sparks a whole round of messages (a 1* 'thread') about the alternatives, the validity of the benchmarks, etc .. This will return a list of the number of each post containing your search tenn, in this case since The SAS-L Archives March 1, 1990. The subject line of each is included, and you can often pick those of likely The foregoing has shown how SAS-L works interest (e.g. a thoughtful "Summary" of day-to-day, but there's a long history of this responses as mentioned before.) To get the interaction. Questions are often asked and complete text of those posts, send the same answered that bad been previously covered message as before but delete the line "Index" some time before. If you want to be a really and replace it with the following: efficient SAS-L user, you could avoid this duplication by looking for such an exchange Print 10023 127 Beginning Tutorials Print 10029 problem, a sample of SAS code, and part of the log into the hands of the SI staffer who was where the numbers are those given in the list helping me.