SYSERR Automatic Macro Variable

Contains a return code status set by some SAS procedures and the DATA step.

Type:

Automatic macro variable (read only)

Details

You can use the value of SYSERR as a condition to determine further action to take or to decide which parts of a SAS program to execute. SYSERR is used to detect major system errors, such as out of memory or failure of the component system when used in some procedures and DATA steps. SYSERR automatic macro variable is reset at each step boundary. For the return code of a complete job, see SYSCC Automatic Macro Variable.

SYSERR can contain the following values:

SYSERR Values

Value	Description
0	Execution completed successfully and without warning messages.
1	Execution was canceled by a user with a RUN CANCEL statement.
2	Execution was canceled by a user with an ATTN or BREAK command.
3	An error in a program run in batch or non-interactive mode caused SAS to enter syntax-check mode.
4	Execution completed successfully but with warning messages.
5	Execution was canceled by a user with an ABORT CANCEL statement.
6	Execution was canceled by a user with an ABORT CANCEL FILE statement.
>6	An error occurred. The value returned is procedure-dependent.

The following table contains warning return codes. The codes do not indicate any specific problems. These codes are guidelines to identify the nature of a problem.

SYSERR Warning Codes

Warning Code	Description
108	Problem with one or more BY groups
112	Error with one or more BY groups
116	Memory problems with one or more BY groups
120	I/O problems with one or more BY groups

The following table contains error return codes. The codes do not indicate any specific problems. These codes are guidelines to identify the nature of a problem.

SYSERR Error Codes

Error Code	Description
1008	General data problem
1012	General error condition
1016	Out-of-memory condition
1020	I/O problem
2000	Semantic action problem
2001	Attribute processing problem
3000	Syntax error
4000	Not a valid procedure
9999	Bug in the procedure
20000	A step was stopped or an ABORT statement was issued.
20001	An ABORT RETURN statement was issued.
20002	An ABORT ABEND statement was issued.
25000	Severe system error. The system cannot initialize or continue.

Example: Using SYSERR

The example creates an error message and uses %PUT &SYSERR to write the return code number (1012) to the SAS log.

data NULL;
   set doesnotexist;
run;  
%put &syserr;

The following SAS log output contains the return code number:

75   data NULL;
76      set doesnotexist;
ERROR: File WORK.DOESNOTEXIST.DATA does not exist.
77
78   run;
NOTE: The SAS System stopped processing this step because of errors.
WARNING: The data set WORK.NULL might be incomplete.  When this step was stopped there were 0 observations and 0 variables.
WARNING: Data set WORK.NULL was not replaced because this step was stopped.
NOTE: DATA statement used (Total process time):
      real time           0.00 seconds
      cpu time            0.00 seconds
79
80   %put &syserr;
1012

To retrieve error and warning text instead of the return code number, see SYSERRORTEXT Automatic Macro Variable and SYSWARNINGTEXT Automatic Macro Variable.