Date:         Thu, 9 May 2002 10:49:57 +0200
Reply-To:     Daniele Monzali <Daniele.Monzali@PROMETEIA.IT>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Daniele Monzali <Daniele.Monzali@PROMETEIA.IT>
Organization: NETTuno
Subject:      R: stupid question ?

this is excatly what i meant, sorry if my english is a bit poor, it would
actually be top if the AUTOSORT options could be specified in the by line.
thanks to everyone who responded
daniele

<Howard_Schreier@ITA.DOC.GOV> wrote in message
200205081747.g48HlV400816@listserv.cc.uga.edu...
> I agree with others to the extent that I would not want existing code to
> work differently than it does now.
>
> However, I think there's more to it.
>
> There are three potential benefits to such a feature:
>
> 1. Less coding when a sort is needed.
>
> 2. No unexpected and unwelcome runtime errors caused by out-of-sequence
> data.
>
> 3. Less disk usage when a sort and another step run back to back. The sort
> would hand observations directly to the next process.
>
> Daniele speaks of a temporary dataset and so does not anticipate #3, but I
> think it would be an important dividend.
>
> Now could Daniele's suggestion be implemented without getting in anybody's
> way? How about an AUTOSORT option to invoke the new behavior? It could be
in
> the PROC step;
>
>    proc whatever data=someds autosort;
>    by id;
>    run;
>
> or in the BY statement
>
>    proc whatever data=someds;
>    by id / autosort;
>    run;
>
> but I think the added granularity of a dataset option might be best:
>
>    proc whatever data=someds(autosort);
>    by id;
>    run;
>
> As to benefit #3, how about PROC SORT views?
>
> On Wed, 8 May 2002 11:48:34 +0200, Daniele Monzali
> <Daniele.Monzali@PROMETEIA.IT> wrote:
>
> >hello
> >has anyone ever proposed to SAS inst. to avoid explicitely sorting
datasets
> >in order to perform "by" operations ? (analysis procs, proc transpose,
you
> >name the others). it could be done with an internal sorting procedure
(yes,
> >i know, in every proc) outputting the data= sas dataset to a temporary
one
> >upon which the PROC would perform the usual analysis.
> >sorry if i ask what may seem a stupid question, but since V9 seems to be
so
> >improved and "augmentated" i was wondering if such an improvement had
> >already been considered and somehow discarded.
> >cheers
> >daniele