SAS Packages (SPF)

A SAS package is a single zip holding a group of SAS programs (macros, functions, data steps) plus automatically generated description, load, unload and help files. The SAS Packages Framework (SPF, by Bartosz Jablonski) installs and loads them from a folder of zips, so a package can be pinned, versioned and swapped without touching SASAUTOS or a macro catalogue.

This skill covers using the framework as a consumer. It is not SASjs-specific - SPF is an independent project, and the packages it serves come from any author.

When to use

• Installing a package into a SAS session, e.g. sasjscore (the SASPAC packaging of @sasjs/core)
• Debugging %installPackage / %helpPackage / %loadPackage failures
• Setting up a packages folder, or working out which path to point the packages fileref at
• Loading macros for one job without adding them to a shared server's SASAUTOS

Don't use for: authoring or publishing a package (%generatePackage), or for @sasjs/core's own macro coding standards - see the sasjs-core skill for those.

Enabling the framework