UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi
I have a rather large set of sas programs that i want to port to unix sas.
All of these programs uses windows functionality somehow. For example win API calls and ole-dll:s via com and dcom.
Now my company is moving to sas on unix, and we must port these apps (sas macros).

So what Im looking for is good info about how to handle the issues mentioned above (api, ole, com).

I thought of this: Let everything be as it is. The api calls can easily be re-written. But the dlls I still want to execute on pc sas. So, is there some combridge (not corba, too complicated) on unix? (Sun solaris). Is there a way to make "remote procedure calls" (sending oleobjects, differens microsoft datatypes) to a win server, from unix and back? How do I handel com obj:s on Unix?

Which course of action should I take?

Ps SAS - statistical analysis system is avalible on both unix and windows - programs are 99% transferable - except for paths (c:\ - > \bin\sas\shared\ blabla) and ofcourse COM objects, for example Ms word or inhouse built dll:s ds

dunno if you're going to get any answer over here but i figured this might help you out if it you haven't thought about it already ... good luck!

There are no COM or DCOM objects in UNIX. However, you can link against shared libraries by trying to port your dll's (minus MS _stdcall and _cdecl stuff) over to Unix as a shared library.

If your dll's are accessing COM for Office objects like reading Word docs or Excel spreadsheets, or using ODBC calls, UNIX also has an equivalent for most of it from

www.openoffice.org

They have a library suite that will do a lot toward working with MS proprietary files and data. If you have completely homegrown COM for your own special apps, then you'll have to do some hokey remote host processing stuff. You will have to create a client/server environment using sockets with Widnows and COM on one side and Unix with shared libraries on the other.

Looks like you have some reading and analysis to do

Yes this one is not easy.
I cant say I think openoffice:s macrofacility seems very clever. It takes about 100 rows of advanced code to accomplish what VBA does in 20.
Anyway, i´ll solve it like this.

I´ll use sas/connect to talk to any server I want regardless of OS.