Obtaining SAS Notes Through Email

All of the SAS Notes can be searched and retrieved by E-mail, using the SAS Notes E-mail server. Over 17,000 SAS Notes are available including Version 6 SAS Notes, Release 6.04 SAS Notes, Version 5 SAS Notes and C Notes.

A mail server is a program that allows you to retrieve data from a remote computer via electronic mail. You send requests to the server in an E-mail message and it sends you an E-mail message in response.

This E-mail server permits you to always have access to the most current SAS Notes. All you need is access to E-mail via the Internet.

The approach for using the mail server is fairly easy.

  1. You send an E-mail message to our mail server with a search request.
  2. The mail server receives your request and sends you a return mail message with a list of SAS Note reference numbers and descriptions of SAS Notes that satisfy your request.
  3. You receive the response message and review the list of hits, checking SAS Note descriptions and searching for SAS Notes that look promising.
  4. You send a mail message to the E-mail server, specifying a list of SAS Note reference numbers for Notes to be retrieved. Then, the mail server processes the request and sends the complete text of the SAS Notes that you requested.
The SEARCH command is used to perform searches. The following request could be specified, to get a list of SAS Notes that contain the keyword "TABULATE": 
   SEARCH TABULATE
Multiple keywords can also be specified on a SEARCH request. Wildcard searches are also permitted. In the following example, both keywords PRINT and UNIFORM must be present in a SAS Note in order for it to be selected. 
   SEARCH PRINT UNIFORM
The GET command is used to retrieve SAS Notes. You can specify multiple SAS Note reference numbers on a GET command.

The following GET command will retrieve SAS Notes with reference numbers 7744 and 8197. These correspond to SAS Notes with official names of V6-COPY-7744 and V6-ASSIST-8197. 

  GET 7744 8197
The following example accesses the Version 6 SAS Notes database. Two separate searches are performed and two SAS Notes are retrieved. 
  TO:       tshelp@sas.com
  SUBJECT:  the subject is ignored
              (body of message follows the dashed line)
  -----------------------------------------------------
  SEARCH XPORT
  SEARCH PROC CHART
  GET 8562 6981
For a complete list of instructions on using the SAS Notes E-mail server, please send mail to:

tshelp@sas.com
On the first line of the message specify the following text:

    HELP
If you have any questions or comments concerning this E-mail server, please send email to David Shinn at saswds@sas.com.

The information on this page was received from John Sims via the tsnews list. This page is maintained by webmaster@stat.ufl.edu. Last Updated: March 3rd, 1995.