This week our SAS paper review looks at  “A Closer Look at PROC SQL’s FEEDBACK Option” by Kenneth W. Borowiak.

The paper explores how the FEEDBACK option can be used in the SQL statement  to cause SAS to create additionally detailed log entries which can be useful for debugging. It explains  how use of the FEEDBACK option will cause SAS to write expanded, more explicit messages in the log, which for example explicitly list any variables that were implicitly selected with a SELECT * construction.

We particularly liked the Code Generation section in which Borowiak’s suggests using the FEEDBACK option in combination with the VALIDATE statement to write an expanded version of the SELECT * statement into the log, which can then be copied back into the program and executed.

We feel the paper is suitable for all SAS users who utilise, or are learning SQL.

The paper was presented at the SouthEast SAS® Users Group, 2012 Conference in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. Download the paper from the SESUG website.