Date:         Mon, 6 Jun 2005 20:40:50 -0500
Reply-To:     Kevin Myers <KMyers@PROCOMINC.NET>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Kevin Myers <KMyers@PROCOMINC.NET>
Subject:      Re: non-urgent question
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Actually you *don't* need to use the *SAS* C compiler to write programs that
access SAS data, nor for user written procs, library engines, formats, or
functions on most platforms.  Other C compilers can (and even should) be
used for those purposes in many cases, e.g. the Microsoft C compilers under
Windows.

As someone else mentioned, the primary reason that SAS acquired it's own C
compiler was so that it could implement SAS on multiple platforms.  Most of
SAS was re-written (and remains) in C for version 6 with one key goal being
improved portability.  So SAS needed an ANSI compliant C compiler on all of
their target platforms.  On some platforms (e.g. MVS) such a compiler was
not readily available at the time.  So, SAS bought the Lattice C compiler,
and implemented it on all of their target platforms where an acceptable C
compiler wasn't already available.  They ended up with one of the few C
compilers that even existed for some hosts, and certainly one of a very few
with cross-platform ANSI compliance on those targets.  So they initially
bought and implemented the Lattice C compiler on multiple hosts for their
own internal development purposes, and now they market the compiler as a
useful tool unto itself on those hosts.

s/KAM


----- Original Message -----
From: "Richard A. DeVenezia" <radevenz@ix.netcom.com>
To: <sas-l@uga.edu>
Sent: Monday, June 06, 2005 7:41 PM
Subject: [Spam] Re: non-urgent question


> Ben wrote:
> > Could anybody tell me why SAS need its own C-compiler? is it all
> > written in C?
>
> - So C programs can access the power to know.
> - So you can write your own Procs
> - So you can write your own Library engines
>
> --
> Richard A. DeVenezia
> http://www.devenezia.com/
>