[ESS] not starting interactive SAS session reliably

[Rodney Sparapani]

Stephen Conklin wrote:
> 
> i am using 
> 
> xemacs [version 21.4; April 2001] 
> ess-5.2.12
> on AIX
> $ uname -a
> AIX sassrv1 2 5 002204CB4C00
> 
> 
> i am having a problem starting an interactive  SAS session reliably. sometimes it works, sometimes it fails. 
> these are the steps i follow.
> 
> open a sas file
> 
> C-x C-f bar.sas
> 
> 
> M-x SAS
> 
> after a time delaly (4 sec) i get 4 windows
> 
> ------------------- 1 --------------------------------------
> -----XEmacs: bar.sas (ESS[SAS] Font [none])
>  contains sas code
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> 
> --------------------- 2 ------------------------------------
> --**--XEmacs: *SAS.log*    (Shell ESStr [])
>   contains
>    sconklin at sassrv1:/afs/btv.ibm.com/u/sconklin/sasuser.800/MySasProgrmas/conk
>    $ tty
>    /dev/pts/56
>    
>    sconklin at sassrv1:/afs/btv.ibm.com/u/sconklin/sasuser.800/MySasProgrmas/conk
>    $ 
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> ---------------------- 3 -----------------------------------
> --**--XEmacs: *SAS.log*    (Shell ESStr [])
>  contains
>    sconklin at sassrv1:/afs/btv.ibm.com/u/sconklin/sasuser.800/MySasProgrmas/conk
>    $ tty
>    /dev/pts/56
>    
>    sconklin at sassrv1:/afs/btv.ibm.com/u/sconklin/sasuser.800/MySasProgrmas/conk
>    $ 
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> 
> ------------------------ 4 ---------------------------------
> --%*-XEmacs: *SAS.lst*     (Shell ESSlst [])
>  contians
>     sconklin at sassrv1:/afs/btv.ibm.com/u/sconklin/sasuser.800/MySasProgrmas/conk
>     $ tty
>     /dev/pts/55
>     
>     sconklin at sassrv1:/afs/btv.ibm.com/u/sconklin/sasuser.800/MySasProgrmas/conk
>     $ 
> ---------------------------------------------------------
> 
> 
> at this point the command buffer at the bottom has 
> /sasuser.800/MySasProgrmas/conk/
> waiting for me to press return
> 
> when i press return i have the problem. it looks like the script ess-sas-sh-command is called. there are two parameters $1 and $2  passed in 
> stdout=$1
> stderr=$2
> 
> $1 should be = to /dev/pts/56 and $2 should be = to /dev/pts/55 and that is what i get about 10 % of the time.
>  
> most of the time i get
> $1=sconklin at sassrv1:/afs/btv.ibm.com/u/sconklin/sasuser.800/MySasProgrmas/conk
> $2=sconklin at sassrv1:/afs/btv.ibm.com/u/sconklin/sasuser.800/MySasProgrmas/conk
> 
> or i get
> 
> $1=/dev/pts/<some value>
> $2=sconklin at sassrv1:/afs/btv.ibm.com/u/sconklin/sasuser.800/MySasProgrmas/conk
> 
> or i get
> 
> $1=sconklin at sassrv1:/afs/btv.ibm.com/u/sconklin/sasuser.800/MySasProgrmas/conk
> $2=/dev/pts/<some value>
> 
> when i get
> 
> $1=/dev/pts/<some value>
> $2=/dev/pts/<some value>
> 
> everything works great.  
> 
> i can also hard code the ess-sas-sh-command script with the 
> $ tty
> /dev/pts/56 and  /dev/pts/55  or what ever tty's are called out
> that show up in the first windows that are cerated. if i do this before i press return the second time everything works.
> 
> 
> my problem is i am not passing the tty info to the ess-sas-sh-command script reliably.
> 
> at this point i am not lisp savvy enough to figure out this feature. 
> 
> any help would be greatly appreciate
> 
> 
> Stephen


Hi Stephen:

The reason that you see two *SAS.log* buffers is that ESS is waiting for 
SAS to initialize.
Once that's done, the upper *SAS.log* buffer becomes *SAS* and
has a transcript of all the lines that were sent to SAS.  But, what is
it waiting for?

For me, M-x SAS only works once.  So, if I kill my *SAS*
buffer (and therefore, it's associated process), another M-x SAS
will not work.  Is that what you are seeing?  If not, try
running M-x ess-sas-interactive.  This is more a test to see if
all of the internal stuff is working.  If that works, then it's
probably something else....

Rodney