The SAS/C Connectivity Support Library

Network communications between SAS/C programs and other applications

The SAS/C Connectivity Support Library (CSL) is an add-on product to the compiler that facilitates network communications between SAS/C programs and other applications. CSL is actually a set of libraries and related utilities that support the use of several popular application protocols for distributed (client/server) computing. CSL operates in a heterogeneous computing environment using TCP/IP, and it is designed to ease the development of mainframe programs that interact with a wide range of other computer systems, including PCs, workstations, large servers, and supercomputers.

The SAS/C CSL libraries provide the programming support for the three most popular application protocols in a TCP/IP network environment:

• X Window System
• Sun Remote Procedure Call (RPC)
• Sun Network File System (NFS) protocols.

CSL also provides a rexec client function, some Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) agent customization functions, and a few supporting POSIX functions.

SAS/C CSL has several important advantages:

• It is designed to work with SAS/C. Thus, a large body of existing applications can be enhanced to use these protocols. Standard SAS/C techniques are used for compiling, linking, and running CSL programs.

• UNIX compatibility is high. The SAS/C CSL design has placed a high priority on running existing UNIX programs with few or no changes. This design goal also maximizes portability among implementations of other operating systems such as DOS and OpenVMS.

• Because SAS/C CSL uses the SAS/C socket library for TCP/IP, programs that are written with the SAS/C CSL will run on a TCP/IP implementation that works with the SAS/C socket library. (The TCP/IP products developed by IBM, Fibronics, and Interlink are examples of such implementations.) Therefore, software developers can build applications without regard for the TCP/IP vendor in use at a customer site.

• As with the base SAS/C product, the run-time components of SAS/C CSL are freely redistributable. This means that applications written with CSL can be run at other sites without requiring those sites to license SAS/C or CSL.