Date:         Mon, 18 Dec 2000 17:55:10 -0700
Reply-To:     Jack Hamilton <JackHamilton@FIRSTHEALTH.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Jack Hamilton <JackHamilton@FIRSTHEALTH.COM>
Subject:      Re: Division by missing (Zero).
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

<kmself@IX.NETCOM.COM> wrote:

>This is far and away the preferable way to deal with these sorts of
>issues.  The post recently about batch-submitting a series of SAS jobs
>on Unix would run into issues if Schreier's advice were followed -- the
>divide-by-zere (or missing) operations would result in nonzero exit
>status, even if this was expected program operation.

Under OpenVMS, and presumably other reliable operating systems,
division by 0 results in a note, not a warning or error, and the job
ends with a normal return code.

On at least some platforms, division by zero can result in a big
performance hit, so it is better to test the divisor before performing
the operation.




--
JackHamilton@FirstHealth.com
Development Manager, Technical Group
METRICS Department, First Health
West Sacramento, California USA