On Dec 4, 9:37 am, Lros...@VERIZON.NET (Maury Ross) wrote: > Hello SasLer's, > I'm trying to figure out what the best approach for creating a front-end > application that passes variables into Sas base programs. Currently, I'm > using .cmd files to perform this task, which is a little out-dated and > requires the user to type data into a dos screen. I'm thinking along the > lines of: Visual Basic, Sas AF, Html, ASP, but I'm not sure the best > approach. Could you please recommend the best application to use and why? > > My needs are : > 1. point to files in specific directories > 2. I need to identify an "output" directory for my Sas reports > 3. I need to validate that certain directories exist based on what a user > enters > 4. I need to be able to pass all of these variables (collected front-end) > into a Sas program (sas base, not scl). > 5. I'd like to be able to notify the user (on front-end side) if error > occur in my Sas program. > > Let me know your thoughts. > > Thanks. > Mike

If you want to use a web front-end, consider Silverlight. Examples of processing with SAS are here:

http://demo.savian.net

If you want a thick client, I wouldn't consider anything other than .NET or Java. I am a .NET person so I would steer you in that direction. Look for my paper on your first .net application here:

http://utilities.savian.net

I build front-ends for SAS using C#/.NET all of the time and it is pretty easy. SCL will pale in comparison to .NET. Consider that SAS is really a datasource and a processing engine. There are great UI technologies out there that are easy to integrate with SAS.

Alan http://www.savian.net