Basics of Using SAS with the World Wide Web

Transcription

1 Basics of Using SAS with the World Wide Web Marvyn Lindsey, The California State University, Office of The Chancellor, Long Beach, CA Charles E. Shipp, Millennium Technologies Institute. Spring Valley, CA ABSTRACT This tutorial will provide an overview of the various techniques that may be employed to access SAS data sources from the W orid Wide Web. The authors will discuss the available tools to access and present SAS data from the World Wide Web including the SAS ODBC driver and the SASJIntrNet components. The advantages and disadvantages of each method will be highlighted. INTRODUCTION The tools described in this paper demonstrate SAS Institute's efforts to provide software components to build dynamic Web applications and deliver Webbased solutions. The information presented is based upon the experiences of the authors and is intended to provide other SAS users with helpful information and insights that can be used to plan for their use of SAS data sources via thewww. AVAILABLE TOOLS Currently SAS provides tools to convert SAS output directly to HTML and also provides data services and compute services via the SASJIntrNet software applications suite. The authors have found that there are many options available. Some of these tools are free and others have to be licensed. Some require a steep learning curve and others require less technical expertise to implement. Also, the computing platform that you are using will dictate which tools you are able to use. Data Services The Data Services tools include the free SAS ODBC driver, htmsql and the SAS Driver for JDBC. The htmsql tool is a CGI program that must reside on a UNIX web server. The SAS driver for JDBC allows SAS data sources to be queried from Java applets. The SAS ODBC driver is currently the only Data Services tool being used by the authors. Before you even think about trying to use these tools, you will need to review the information displayed on the SASJIntrNet Software Product Components & System Dependencies web page. From this page you can determine if a particular component is available on your computing platform and can actually download it, providing you have obtained a trial SETINIT code. Compute Services The compute services include the SAS/JntrNet Application Dispatcher, the Application Broker CGI and the Application Server. The SAS SQL library for C is required for developing the client half of client-server applications. The SAS/IntrNet software download page on the WWW indicates on which computing platform the SAS Server Components, Web Server Components, and Client Components are currently available. Tools to Convert SAS Output to HTML SAS provides three different web publishing tools that are free to download. They include the SAS Animation Plugin, a tool for creating graphics for web pages, and three tools to format SAS data and output. 454

2 These tools include the HTML Output Formatter, the HTML Data Set Formatter, and the HTML Tabulate Formatter and were used on both SAS System for the Macintosh 6.12 and SAS for Windows NT The authors have not tried the SAS Automation Plugin because it currently is available only for Windows 95. The web graphics creation tools have also not been tried at this time. IMPLEMENTATION EXPERIENCE The initial attempt to access SAS data from the WWW made use of the SAS ODBC 32- bit driver. This was an easy choice because a Windows NT Server running Microsoft Internet Information Server (lis 3.0) was available. This provided access to the SAS ODBC driver via the Internet Database Connectivity component of lis 3.0. The second attempt to access SAS data from the WWW made use of the free SAS HTML Formatting Tools. The use of these methods is illustrated in detail on the following pages and will be included in the formal presentation of this tutorial. SUMMARY CONCLUSIONS FURTHER EXPLORATION The authors recommend that the other SASlIntrNet tools be investigated further with the understanding that many of them require much more technical expertise and effort to implement. The SAS web tools home page should be bookmarked and visited frequently to keep up with the latest information regarding all of the SAS web publishing tools. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS SAS and SAS/IntrNet are registered trademarks of SAS Institute Inc. in the U.S. and other countries. indicates USA registration. Other brand and product names are registered trademarks or trademarks of their respective companies. AUTHOR CONTACT INFORMATION Marvyn M. Lindsey, Associate Director Analytic Studies Division The California State University 400 Golden Shore, Suite 302 Long Beach, CA Telephone: Fax: Internet: marv@calstate.edu The authors have found that both the use of the SAS ODBC driver and the HTML formatting tools are adequate enough to get you started with accessing SAS data from the WWW quickly and efficiently. 455

3 Step 1 - Open System Control Panel and Double Click ODBC Control Panel Devices Dial-Up Monitor Display Find Fast Adapters "Server 'Services Sounds ilsystem.. T ape Devices 4 Telephony.UPS Step 2 - ODBC Control Panel - Select System DSN tab Excel Files FoxPro Files MS Access 97 Database Text Files MicrostJit dbase Driver ("_dbij M icrosoll Excel Driver ("_xis) M ierosoll F oxpro Driver ("_dbf) Microsoft Access Driver (".mdb) Microsoft Text Driver (".bet; ".csv) 456

4 Step 3 ODBC Data Source Administrator select Add Step 4 Create New Data Source Double Click the SAS ODBC Driver

5 Step 5 - Specify SAS ODBC Driver Configuration Step 6 - Specify SAS Datasource GeneraIlnformatioD 458

6 Step 7 Specify SAS ODBC Server Configuration Step 8 Specify Local DDE Options 459

7 Step 9 - Establish SAS ODBC Driver Reference to the SAS library Step 10 - Specify SQL Options 460

8 Step 11 - SAS ODBC Driver General Tab after setup is complete. Step 12 - New System Datasource CSRDE is now displayed in the ODBC control panel. 461

9 Step 13. Sample HTML Query Page sasq4.htm <HTML> <HEAD> <I'lTLE>Graduation Rates - Select Campus<fIITLE> <!HEAD> <BODY BACKGROUND="'sky.jpg"> <HR> <H2><CENTER>Graduation Rates<lCENTER><lH2> <H2><CENTER>Campus Selection<lCENTER.><JH2> <HR> <CENTER> <FORM METHOD="POST" ACTION=" <P> <STRONG>Campus Name<BR><IS1RONG> <SELECT NAME="campusid" SIZE="4"> <OPTION SELECTED V ALUE="Bakersfield">Bakersfield <OPTION V ALUE="Chico">Chico <OPTION V ALUE="Sonoma">Sonorna <OPTION V ALUE="Stanislaus ">Stanislaus <lselectxbr> <P> <INPUT TYPE="SUBMIT" V ALUE="Run Query"> <HR> <!FORM> <!font> <lcenter> </BODY> <IHI'ML> Step 14..IDC Document invokes SAS ODBC Driver to execute SQL command Iscriptslsampleslsasq4.idc Datasource: CSRDE Username: (valid Windows NT 4.0 Server username goes here) Template: sasq2.htx SQLStatement: +SELECT CAMPUS, YEAR, WGTTI9, WGTT20, WGTT18, +WCTT221, WCIT222, WCTT224, WCIT225, WCTT226 +FROM csrde.wall8895 +where campus = "%campusid%" 462

10 Step Return desired output via.htx document sasq2.htx <html> <title>om First SAS ODBC Page from WWW<ltitle> <!BODY BACKGROUND="ht1p:llwww.asd.calstate.edulsky.jpg"> <BODY BACKGROUND::"'sky.jpg"> <Iu> <CENTER> <h2>csu Campus Graduation Rates<lh2> <h2> 1988 thru 1995<1b2> <lcenter> <font size=2> <CENTER> <TABLE BORDER> <%begindetau%> <%if CurrentRecord EQ 0%> <'TR> <1'H><B>Campus <BR><IB><1TH> <1'H><B> Year <BR><IB><1TH> <1'H><B>4 Year Rate<BR><IB><1TH> <1'H><B>5 Year Rate<BR><IB><1TH> <1'H><B>6 Year Rate<BR><IB><1TH> <fir> <%endif%> <'TR> <'TD><%CAMPUS%><IID> <'TD><%YEAR%><IID> <TO ALIGN=CENTER><%WGTII9%><fID> <TD ALIGN=CENTER><%WGTI20%><IID> <TD ALIGN=CENI'ER><%WGTII8%><IID> <fir> <%enddetan%> <ltable> <fcenter> <ffont> <!body> <lhtml> 463