problems using SAS mode

[Faheem Mitha]

Dear People,

I am trying to figure out how to use SAS with ESS. I have never tried to
do so before, and am having some trouble. I have previously used ESS with
R.

Hopefully I am making some stupid errors which can be easily corrected.

I am first trying to run SAS in batch mode as per the instructions in
README.SAS.

Note that SAS runs fine both from a regular shell and on a shell from
inside emacs.

I added the line

(setq ess-sas-local-unix-keys t)

to my .emacs.

I then opened a sas test file in emacs as follows.

**************************
DATA distance;
miles = 23;
kilometr = 1.61*miles;
PROC PRINT DATA = distance;
RUN;
**************************

I then hit F3 as instructed to run the program in SAS mode. I just got
a beep. None of the other function keys did anything. I suppose it is
likely that I do not have the right thing in my .emacs file. I am
reluctant to modify the system files since this would break on an
upgrade.

I have different problems with interactive SAS mode.

First I open up the file, then I do M-x SAS. I get three additional
buffers, two of which appear to be the same, labelled *SAS.log*, and
look like

*************************
sh-2.05b$ tty
/dev/pts/5
sh-2.05b$
************************

There is a third buffer labelled *SAS.lst* which looks like

******************
/dev/pts/4
sh-2.05b$
******************

In the minibuffer I got

ESS [SAS(SAS):
/usr/share/emacs21/site-lisp/ess/../etc/ess-sas-sh-command] starting
data directory? ~/

Pressing return to this gives

Process SAS is not running.

None of this is as described in the docs, so I have to conclude there
is something wrong. Any suggestions?

Thanks in advance.

                                                   Faheem.