Greetings,

I've run into a serious AF application management problem. I have an application that I've been asked to repeatedly customize for various customers. Now I have multiple versions of the same basic application, all with minor differences. This is becoming a maintenance nightmare. When I make a change in one application, I have to repeat the change, and repeat the testing of the change, in every customers version.

I have a tools catalog containing all the truly generic code that can be accessed by any application. That helps. I was hoping to use the new CATNAME option for the AF command (v 6.12) to concatenate the main (or standard) application catalog with catalogs containing only the modified entries for each customer. That would have been the ideal solution, but the CATNAME option doesn't work (SAS should be issuing a usage note about this soon).

I find it hard to believe that nobody else is running into this problem. But, I see no SUGI papers about it, and no threads on SAS-L, and SAS says that I was the first person to discover the CATNAME bug. So, how are you all managing customized versions of AF applications?

Thanks for any help!

-- Jerry Kagan - kaganj01@IMSINT.com Yet another SAS Consultant