How to debug a SAS program?

[Kenneth M. Lin]

By that I mean just scan the program to check for syntax errors and not
actually process the data but assume that all datasets exist. My client
won't give me access to Oracle where the data reside and I am writing the
program rather blindly.

[Amar Mundankar]

Post by Kenneth M. Lin
By that I mean just scan the program to check for syntax errors and not
actually process the data but assume that all datasets exist.  My client
won't give me access to Oracle where the data reside and I am writing the
program rather blindly.

Hi Kenneth,
For Proc sql you can use NOEXEC option

proc sql noexec;
select * from table;
/*--You can write multiple querries here.--*/
quit;

This will only check the syntax and will not execute the query.

For Data step, you can set SAS System option OBS = 0 and run the
program.
And if you dont have the actual dataset create some sample dataset
without any record in that.
e.g. Create a dataset called TEST with o observation and some varibles
in it.

data TEST;
attrib a b c;
run;

Then set OBS = 0 like.
OPTIONS OBS = 0;
/*--Write your code below--*/
data TEST2;
set TEST;
/*---Write SAS Statements here--*/
run;

Hope this willl help you.

Regards,
Amar Mundankar.