ESS 15.09: M-x SAS can only run one line at a time without hanging

[rsparapa]

This is definitely a bug since M-x ess-sas-interactive (which is based on the same
underpinnings) successfully submits regions, paragraphs, etc. Bug also exists in 15.03
so it has been around for awhile apparently.

[mslaught]

Does anyone know if there has been a fix for this? A linux server I work on recently had ESS upgraded from 5.3.11 to 15.03.1 and this is now a problem for me. I use SAS interactively a lot and now I can only submit one line at a time instead of being able to use C-c C-p. It's destroying my life.

[vspinu]

Could you please provide a backtrace on C-g? I will try to figure it out without having SAS installed.

Rodney, can I use some other process to emulate SAS' behavior? It's all batch, no interactive right? I should be able to fix this without even having SAS installed.

[rsparapa]

On Mon, 2015-11-09 at 10:12 -0800, Vitalie Spinu wrote:

Rodney, can I use some other process to emulate SAS' behavior? It's
all batch, no interactive right? I should be able to fix this without
even having SAS installed.

No, interactive SAS is the problem (batch works fine). Maybe you
could use R to fake it.

[vspinu]

Then it's almost surely a prompt regex issue. What is SAS prompt?

[rsparapa]

On Tue, 2015-11-10 at 13:29 -0800, Vitalie Spinu wrote:

Then it's almost surely a prompt regex issue. What is SAS prompt?

Hi Vitalie:

I was thinking the same thing. However, I just tried it and it works
now! I don't know if something has changed in 15.09-1 to make this
work or what is going on. But, to answer your question, SAS prompt is
just line number, i.e. in SAS.log you see these appear at the
beginning of the lines you have submitted from your .sas program...

1
2
3
etc.

For example, here is something I just ran successfully (SAS.log)...
1
2 %put I read the first line; *this works -- prints to the log;
I read the first line
3 libname temp '.'; *this works too -- gives me a "successfully defined"
3 ! message;
NOTE: Libref TEMP refers to the same physical library as PWD.
NOTE: Libref TEMP was successfully assigned as follows:

And correspondingly, in the SAS:~ buffer I see (notice that it adds
plus signs occationally for continuation I guess)...
%put I read the first line; *this works -- prints to the log;
libname temp '.'; *this works too -- gives me a "successfully defined" message;

data temp2;

• set temp.temp1;
  run;

Rodney

[rsparapa]

Maybe this is more of a misfeature than a bug. If you do (setq ess-eval-visibly 'nowait),
then it works. Should we make any changes to the code? If not, then we should change the documentation?

[vspinu]

It's likely the regexp bug. With visual evaluation ESS waits for the prompt and doesn't find it. It should be strightforward to step through ess-eval-linewise and see what's going on.

[rsparapa]

On Thu, 2015-11-12 at 07:47 -0800, Vitalie Spinu wrote:

It's likely the regexp bug. With visual evaluation ESS waits for the
prompt and doesn't find it. It should be strightforward to step
through ess-eval-linewise and see what's going on.

How do you that? I can't seem to find where M-x SAS even calls
ess-eval-linewise. Anyways, I see that M-x ess-sas-interactive simply
does (setq ess-eval-visibly-p nil) which is an alias for
ess-eval-visibly; so that is why ess-sas-interactive always works.

Wouldn't that be the easiest thing to do for M-x SAS too? I don't
think SAS has a prompt anyways. The line numbers come from stderr so
they are not a prompt. Or, could we have just called
ess-eval-linewise with the 5th arg WAIT-LAST-PROMPT set to t?

[vspinu]

How do you that? I can't seem to find where M-x SAS even calls ess-eval-linewise.

It's not SAS that calls it but the eval commands like ess-eval-line-and-step. In order to edebug a function instrument it with C-u C-M-x and step through with edebugger when it's involved next time.

I don't think SAS has a prompt anyways.

Ok. So if there is no prompt then there is no choice but to set (setq ess-eval-visibly nil) everywhere.