SAS 9.1 Companion For Unix Enivronments

What is the SAS Session Manager?

The SAS Session Manager for X ( motifxsassm ) is an X client that is run by SAS when you use the SAS windowing environment. The session manager appears as shown in the following display.

Display 2.2: SAS Session Manager Dialog Box

The session manager window describes the following:

• which SAS session it controls

• the host machine from which the SAS session was invoked

• the UNIX process identifier of the SAS session.

When SAS opens, the session manager window is automatically minimized ( iconified ).

Features of the SAS Session Manager

The session manager enables you to

• map and iconize all windows of the SAS session. The Restore and Minimize buttons restore and minimize all of the windows that are open in the SAS session that is controlled by that session manager. These functions are performed with standard X library calls and will work with most X window managers.

• interrupt the SAS session. The Interrupt button sends a UNIX signal to SAS. When SAS receives the signal, it displays a dialog box that asks for confirmation before it cancels the submitted statements.

• terminate the SAS session. Terminate displays a dialog box that asks you to confirm that you want to terminate the SAS session. If you select OK , the session manager sends a UNIX signal to the SAS session that forces the session to terminate.

  Caution

  Terminating your SAS session might result in data loss or data corruption. Before terminating your session, you should attempt to end SAS using one of the methods described in "Preferred Methods of Exiting SAS" on page 22.

• use your host editor from within your SAS session. When you issue the HOSTEDIT command, SAS passes the request to the session manager, which then invokes your host editor, so the session manager must be running in order for the HOSTEDIT command to take effect. When you issue the HOSTEDIT command, SAS creates a temporary file that contains the data from the active SAS window and passes this file to your host editor. (These temporary files are stored in the directory specified by the SASWORK option.) When you save your file in the host editor, the file is copied back into the SAS window if the window is writable, and the temporary files are deleted when the SAS session ends. See "Configuring SAS for Host Editor Support in UNIX Environments" on page 49 for more information.

Disabling the SAS Session Manager

You can disable the SAS Session Manager by performing one of the following steps:

• Select Tools – Options – Preferences

  On the General tab, deselect the Start Session manager check box.

• Specify the following X resource on the SAS command line at invocation:

  sas -xrm 'SAS.startSessionManager: False'

  Specifying the SAS.startSessionManager X resource will deselect the Start Session manager check box in the Preferences dialog box.