What's New in Base SAS 9.4

Two New Languages

• DS2 is a SAS proprietary programming language that is appropriate for advanced data manipulation and applications. It also includes additional data types, ANSI SQL types, programming structure elements, and user-defined methods and packages. The DS2 procedure enables you to submit DS2 language statements from a Base SAS session.
• SAS FedSQL is a SAS proprietary implementation of the ANSI SQL:1999 core standard. It provides support for new data types and other ANSI 1999 core compliance features and proprietary extensions. FedSQL provides data access technology that brings a scalable, threaded, high-performance way to access, manage, and share relational data in multiple data sources. FedSQL is a vendor-neutral SQL dialect that accesses data from various data sources without submitting queries in the SQL dialect that is specific to the data source. In addition, a single FedSQL query can target data in several data sources and return a single result table. The FEDSQL procedure enables you to submit FedSQL language statements from a Base SAS session.
  

New Automatic Macro Variables

• SYSDATASTEPPHASE ensures that the macro is being executed as part of the proper phase of a DATA step.
• SYSHOSTINFOLONG contains the operating environment information that is displayed when the HOSTINFOLONG option is specified.
• SYSPROCESSMODE contains the name of the current SAS session run mode or server type.
• SYSTIMEZONE contains the time zone name based on the current value of the TIMEZONE option.
• SYSTIMEZONEIDENT contains the time zone ID based on the current value of the TIMEZONE option.
• SYSTIMEZONEOFFSET contains the time zone offset based on the current value of the TIMEZONE option.
  

Improved Performance

• SAS can process large amounts of data more efficiently by using new system options to align data and utility files on a page boundary and to set the page size for a SAS library to be the same size as a RAID stripe.
• Optimization processes that determine page size and the default size of a logical record length have been enhanced.
• The Scalable Performance Data Engine (SPD Engine) enables the caching of opened SPD Engine files.
  

Output Delivery System

• New ODS destinations are ODS EPUB, ODS HTML5, and ODS POWERPOINT.
• The Output Delivery System (ODS) Report Writing Interface (RWI) enables you to create and manipulate predefined ODS objects in a DATA step to create highly customized output.
• The ODS LAYOUT statement enables you to specify the exact location on the page to place a layout and region container.
• There are three new ODS procedures: PROC ODSLIST, PROC ODSTABLE, and PROC ODSTEXT.
• The default style for all Printer family destinations (PS, PDF, PCL) has changed from Styles.Printer to Styles.Pearl.
• The default HTML style for z/OS has changed from Styles.Default to Styles.Htmlblue.
• There are three new ODS Graphics style attributes: DATASKIN, FILLPATTERN=, and KPISKIN.
• There are four new ODS statements: ODS POWERPOINT, ODS EPUB, ODS LAYOUT, and ODS HTML5.
• There are three new ODS destinations, ODS POWERPOINT, ODS EPUB, and ODS HTML5.
  

Procedures Enhancements

• The APPEND, COPY, and CONTENTS statements support AES encryption.
• The CONTENTS statement prints the International Components for Unicode (ICU) revision number.
• The DATASETS procedure supports extended attributes.
• The DELETE procedure enables you to delete SAS files from the disk or tape on which it is stored.
• The JSON procedure reads data from a SAS data set and writes the data to an external file in JSON representation.
• The MIGRATE procedure supports extended attributes.
• The OPTIONS procedure supports the new LISTOPTSAVE option which lists the system options that can be saved by using the OPTSAVE procedure or the DMOPTSAVE command.
• The PRINT procedure support the SUMLABEL= option and the GRANDTOTAL_LABEL= option enable you to specify labels for the BY group total and grand total values.
• The PROC PRINTTO PRINT= statement opens the LISTING destination. You no longer need to specify the ODS LISTING statement before you use the PRINTTO procedure.
• In-Database processing for PROC REPORT now supports the Aster, Greenplum, and HADOOP database management systems. Also, NOWINDOWS is now the default windowing environment for PROC REPORT
• The XSL procedure now provides the PARAMETER statement to pass a parameter value to an XSL style sheet.
  

Other Enhancements

• The default value of the EXTENDOBSCOUNTER= data set option has been changed to YES.
• The default value of the YEARCUTOFF= system option has been changed to 1926.
• The LIBNAME statement for the XMLV2 engine nickname supports the PREFIXATTRIBUTES= option.
  

Increased Security

• SAS/SECURE is a product within the SAS System, and it is now included with Base SAS. A separate license for SAS/SECURE is no longer required. This change makes strong encryption available in all deployments (except where prohibited by import restrictions).
• SAS/SECURE increases data security by using the industry standard Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) with 64-bit salt. See Encryption in SAS 9.4.
• The enhanced ENCRYPT= data set option now supports AES encryption. This enables you to use the AES algorithm for stronger encryption.
• Data sets in a metadata repository can be secured by placing them in a metadata-bound library. A metadata-bound library is a physical library that is tied to a corresponding metadata object.
  

National Language Support (NLS)

• SAS can now process data by using a time zone other than your local time zone. New time zone formats use the ISO 8601 standard to format dates, times, and datetime values by using Universal Coordinate Time (UTC).
• New time zone functions enable you to determine time zones and time zone offsets, and to convert datetime values between SAS and UTC.
• A new SAS datetime constant enables a SAS datetime value to have a time zone offset.