Bugs, etc. for runsas1.cgi

2/25/98:  There are confirmed reports of problems in completing the SAS assignments if you are using Internet Explorer rather than Netscape as your web browser.  The reason the problem arises and workarounds are currently unknown.  In the short run, use Netscape (available in the public labs or from home.netscape.com) to do the assignments.  We are currently contacting the technical support people to see if we can figure out how to fix the problems.  We apologize for any inconvenience -- this problem has never surfaced before.

January 29, 1997

1. SAS jobs that use double quotes don't work properly.

If you submit the following code:

** this is a comment with "double quote"s ;
data new ; input a b ; cards ;

 

You see the following error message:

3          ** this is a comment with "double quote"
                                           ______
                                           ______
                                           ______
                                           180
                                           180
                                           180
WARNING: Apparent symbolic reference QUOT not resolved.

ERROR 180-322: Statement is not valid or it is used out of proper order.
ERROR 180-322: Statement is not valid or it is used out of proper order.
ERROR 180-322: Statement is not valid or it is used out of proper order.

3                                                            s ;
                                                             _
                                                             _
                                                             _
                                                             180
                                                             180
                                                             180

ERROR 180-322: Statement is not valid or it is used out of proper order.
ERROR 180-322: Statement is not valid or it is used out of proper order.
ERROR 180-322: Statement is not valid or it is used out of proper order.

 

2. SAS jobs that use the "<" symbol rather than "LT" don't work properly.

If you submit the following code:

data new ; input a b ; cards ;
1 2
3 4
;
run ;
data test ; set new ; if a < 3 ; run ;

You see the following error message:

9          data test ; set new ; if a < 3 ; run ;
                                           _
                                           _
                                           _
                                           180
                                           180
                                           180
WARNING: Apparent symbolic reference LT not resolved.

ERROR 180-322: Statement is not valid or it is used out of proper order.

 

This is probably not a bug but a feature! The less than symbol is reserved in HTML, so that when it appears the server tries to interpret what follows as an HTML tag, and clearly can't, so everything goes nuts. It is possible to insert that character into an HTML document, but not worth the trouble here...

The Rule When Using This Interface: Do not use the less than character. Use the LT symbol or LE symbol, as appropriate, instead.