Date:         Sun, 13 Jul 1997 23:10:10 -0700
Reply-To:     "Karsten M. Self" <kmself@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>
From:         "Karsten M. Self" <kmself@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Subject:      Re: question regarding sas under unix
Comments: To: Ranan kuperman <ranank@SPIRIT.TAU.AC.IL>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

I find it unlikely that SAS is changing system priorities for your job based on the type of program step being executed, and pose some questions by way of finding an answer.  For starters, what Unix, which version of SAS, and what kinds of procedures and data steps are you running?
 
Are you certain you are looking at priority and not CPU utilization?  In a 'top' command output, priorities are measured by an integer ranging typically from -20 to 20 or 0 to 40, depending on who's concept of Unix you're mainlining.  CPU utilization is provided as a percentage.  On some systems (Sun/Solaris) you will have additional measures of such things as IOWAIT posted on a 'top' display.  HPUX doesn't provide this bit of chrome.
 
It is possible (and likely) that you are seeing CPU utilization changes between relatively disk IO intensive data steps, and CPU intensive procedures, or vice versa.  In the fuzzy nether reaches of my aged brain I recall hearing quoted as lore that Unixs tend to dedicate more resources to IO intensive activities than to process intensive ones.
 
Good luck.
 
Karsten M. Self (kmself@ix.netcom.com)
 
    What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?
 
-----Original Message-----
From:   Ranan kuperman [SMTP:ranank@SPIRIT.TAU.AC.IL]
Sent:   Thursday, July 10, 1997 1:44 PM
To:     Multiple recipients of list SAS-L
Subject:        question regarding sas under unix
 
Working with SAS on a Unix station, I noticed that whenever a PROC
procedure is called, their seems to be a "nice" command that reduces the CPU
priority to 20%, even if no other programs are simultaneously running. On
the other hand, during the data step, even if I create and endless loop and
run it all night, the program stays at 100% priority.
 
I am wondering if anybody has encountered this and might know if it is
possible to change the settings of the package in order to prevent this.
 
Ranan Kuperman
--