Is there a way to make SAS stop upon the first warning or error?

Question

SAS likes to continue processing well after warnings and errors, so I often need to scroll back through pages in the log to find an issue. Is there a better way? I'd like it to stop as soon as the first error or warning appears so I can fix it and try again.

Answer 1

Adding this statement will get you what you want for ERROR processing. There aren't any similar options for WARNING processing.

OPTIONS ERRORABEND ERRORBYABEND ERRORCHECK=STRICT ERRORS=1;

The system defaults are:

OPTIONS NOERRORABEND NOERRORBYABEND ERRORCHECK=NORMAL ERRORS=20;

You can see what all of your system options are set to with:

PROC OPTIONS; RUN:

Note that by default, when an error occurs, SAS "stops" processing by setting OBS=0 for all remaining steps but continues to syntax check the rest of the program. OPTIONS ERRORABEND instead abends the program immediately.