When using SAS to develop high-performance queries against remote SQL databases, it is helpful to see the exact ODBC messages that SAS passes to the driver. Sometimes the implicit SQL poorly translates a query, which can be optimized. To see these message, enable the SAS trace like this:
options sastrace=',,,d' sastraceloc=saslog nostsuffix;
However, when closing the SAS process, there can be a pop-up dialog window with the title "SAS Message Log" with entries like this:
ODBC: COMMIT performed on connection #6. ODBC: COMMIT performed on connection #5. ODBC: COMMIT performed on connection #4. ODBC: COMMIT performed on connection #3. ODBC: COMMIT performed on connection #2. ODBC: COMMIT performed on connection #1. ODBC: COMMIT performed on connection #0.
When running SAS interactively, this is a minor nuisance. When running SAS in an automated batch, this can be a serious problem because the dialog will wait indefinitely for human interaction, so the sas.exe process will never terminate.
