Direct PC SAS Output to a File

When running SAS programs interactively through the display manager, the output from any procedure is written to the Output window and notes, warnings and errors are written to the Log Window. Contents of these windows are temporary. They can be saved to a file using the File Save pulldown menus from the Output Window and from the Log Window. But if you want to make sure that the output of these windows is saved to a file every time, you can use Proc Printto to automatically route output to a file.

For example, the following program routes the output from Proc Printto directly to a file named auto.lst. What would have gone to the Output Window is redirected to the file c:\auto.lst . The statements below tell SAS to send output that would go to the Output Window to the file c:\auto.lst and to create a new file if the file currently exists.  If the NEW option was omitted, SAS would append to the file if it existed.

    PROC PRINTTO PRINT='c:\auto.lst' NEW;
    RUN;

Note: (1) sometime SAS program can collapse (unexpected terminated) before it executes all of the statements properly, then you will lose all of the results you already got.(In this kind of situation you have to end the SAS through Windows Task Manager, because generally the SAS program will stop respond). By using Proc Printto, you can save all of the temporary results you have already got before the program is unexpected terminated.

(2) Generally you need put Proc Printto statement at the very beginning of the SAS code. Of course, you can also release the print output file by using another simple statement at the very end of the SAS code:
    PROC PRINTTO;
    RUN;

(3) For log print, you can use a similar SAS Code:

    PROC PRINTTO LOG='c:\auto.log' NEW;
    RUN;