1 The SASmarkdown Package

1.1 Installation

The SASmarkdown package contains several alternative SAS engines, and some helper functions to use with them. It adds to the functionality already in the knitr package.

You can install the SASmarkdown package from CRAN as you would any R package. The current version on CRAN is SASmarkdown 0.8.0. In Rstudio you install from the Packages pane, or in the Console type:

install.packages("SASmarkdown")

This package can also be found at http://github.com/Hemken/SASmarkdown . (You can suggest changes or report bugs there.)

To install the latest version of SASmarkdown, use

remotes::install_github("Hemken/SASmarkdown")

Alternatively, use

install.packages("https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~hemken/SASworkshops/SASmarkdown_0.8.0.tar.gz",
                 repos=NULL, type="source")
# or, for Windows
# install.packages("https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~hemken/SASworkshops/SASmarkdown_0.8.0.zip",
#                  repos=NULL)

For the R documentation, type

help(package="SASmarkdown")

For basic usage information, keep reading here.

1.2 Set up the SAS Engines

To load and use the SAS engines, use the R library function in an preliminary code block in your document.

```{r} 
library(SASmarkdown)
```

In your document this would look like:

library(SASmarkdown)

## SAS found at C:/Program Files/SASHome/SASFoundation/9.4/sas.exe

## SAS engines are now ready to use.

When you load the SASmarkdown package, eight SAS engines are defined and ready to use. They all run your SAS code, but return different output into your document. These are used in pairs.

sas - this returns the SAS code you ran and ordinary ("listing") output
saslog - this returns the SAS log instead of your code, and ordinary SAS output
sashtml - this returns SAS code and SAS HTML output
sashtmllog - this returns the SAS log and SAS HTML output
sashtml5 - this returns SAS code and SAS HTML output with inline graphics
sashtml5log - this returns the SAS log and SAS HTML output
saspdf - this returns SAS code and SAS LaTeX output with PDF graphics
saspdflog - this returns the SAS log and SAS LaTeX output

1.3 Use an Engine

These engines all require the location of SAS on your computer. In addition, you can set command line options for SAS to use.

When you load SASmarkdown via library you will see a message telling you that the SAS executable was found, or that SAS was not found.

If SAS was not found you need to specify the executable location yourself. You only need to set the engines you will be using.

This might be done like this:

saspath <- "C:/Program Files/SASHome/SASFoundation/9.4/sas.exe"
sasopts <- "-nosplash -ls 75" # '-nosplash' fails in Unix terminals
knitr::opts_chunk$set(engine.path=list(sas=saspath, saslog=saspath),
                      engine.opts=list(sas=sasopts, saslog=sasopts), 
                      comment=NA)

1.3.1 "sas" engine

You can use these SAS engines in much the same way as any language engine in knitr. In your document include a code block like this:

```{sas} 
proc means data=sashelp.class;
run;
```

Which gives you

proc means data=sashelp.class;
run;

                            The MEANS Procedure

 Variable    N           Mean        Std Dev        Minimum        Maximum
 -------------------------------------------------------------------------
 Age        19     13.3157895      1.4926722     11.0000000     16.0000000
 Height     19     62.3368421      5.1270752     51.3000000     72.0000000
 Weight     19    100.0263158     22.7739335     50.5000000    150.0000000
 -------------------------------------------------------------------------

For more explanation and examples, please continue with chapter 2.

Written using

SASmarkdown version 0.8.0.
knitr version 1.40.
R version 4.2.2 (2022-10-31 ucrt).