sasjs context¶

The sasjs context command allows users to list all and export individual Compute Contexts. Administrators may also create, edit and delete contexts.

A compute context is used when firing up a new SAS session (it itself inherits from a Launcher Context). Example use cases for this tool:

Creating a new compute context as part of a CI/CD deploy
Deleting a compute context as part of a tidy up
Discovering which compute contexts can actually be used
Modifying a compute context, eg to update the autoexec or system account used

Prerequisites¶

Before using this command, you will need to install the SASJS CLI and add a deployment target.

Syntax¶

sasjs context <action> [additional arguments]

Additional arguments include:

--source (alias -s) - the source JSON file to create or edit a compute context. Used in the create and edit actions.
--target (alias -t) - the target environment in which to create the compute context. If not specified, the first target will be used instead. The target can exist either in the local project configuration or in the global .sasjsrc file.

Compute Context Structure¶

The create and edit actions use the same JSON structure for adding / modifying contexts. This also matches the context made by the export action, which can be used to provide a template for adding / modifying new contexts. The JSON is defined as follows:

{
  "name": "myNewComputeContext",
  "attributes": {
    "reuseServerProcesses": true,
    "runServerAs": "mycasaccount"
  },
  "environment": {
    "autoExecLines": [
      "%put autoexec line 1;",
      "%put autoexect line 2;"
    ],
    "options": [
     "-BUFNO 10",
     "-MEMSIZE 4G"
    ]
  },
  "launchContext": {
    "contextName": "SAS Job Execution launcher context"
  },
  "launchType": "service",
}

To explain the sections:

name - name of the compute context you will create
reuseServerProcesses - since Viya 3.5 you can re-use sessions, this improves performance significantly but requires the sessions to run under a system account (defined below)
runServerAs - the system account to use when re-using server processes
autoExecLines - an array of SAS program lines. These will execute ONCE when the server process is started, so expensive libname assignments could be placed here, speeding up web service response times.
options - an array of SAS option settings
contextName - the name of the launcher context used to spawn the compute context
launchtype - a mandatory parameter, more details here

sasjs context create¶

Used to create a new compute context.

Syntax¶

sasjs context create -s source.json -t target

Usage¶

# create minimal context config
cat > ./myContext.json <<'EOL'
{
  "name": "myNewComputeContext",
  "launchContext": {
    "contextName": "SAS Job Execution launcher context"
  },
  "launchType": "service"
}
EOL

# create the context using the target defined in sasjs add
sasjs context create -s ./myContext.json -t myTarget

sasjs context delete¶

Used to delete an existing context. No source JSON needed, contextName is used instead.

Syntax¶

sasjs context delete <contextName> -t target

Usage¶

sasjs context delete myUndesirableComputeContext -t myTarget

sasjs context edit¶

Used to edit an existing context

Syntax¶

sasjs context edit <contextName> -s source.json -t target

Usage¶

# create JSON file with the changes to apply
cat > ./myContext.json <<'EOL'
{
  "name": "myRenamedComputeContext",
  "launchContext": {
    "contextName": "Some Other launcher context"
  },
  "launchType": "service"
}
EOL

# update the context named myComputeContext
sasjs context edit myComputeContext -s ./myContext.json -t myTarget

sasjs context export¶

Exports specified compute context to contextName.json in the current folder. No source JSON is needed, just provide the contextName.

Syntax¶

sasjs context export <contextName> -t target

Usage¶

sasjs context export someContext -t myTarget

sasjs context list¶

Outputs a list of all accessible and inaccessible contexts. Accessible contexts are discovered by attempting to run %put &=sysuserid; on each context.

Syntax¶

sasjs context list -t target

Usage¶

sasjs context list -t myTarget