Packages

Step 1: Create the Package Directory Structure

To create a package, you must first create a directory hierarchy on your local computer.

If you install a package by using PROC IML, the root directory is the name of your package in lowercase. To match that behavior, create a directory named righttriangle .

Within the righttriangle directory, create four subdirectories: data , help , programs , and source . It is recommended that you create these directories even though one or more of them might be empty. The purpose of each subdirectory is as follows:

data: Contains all SAS data sets (sas7bdat files) that are used by the package. Use lowercase characters for the names of the data sets in this directory.
help: Contains documentation for the package. You should include a plain text file with a .txt extension. Optionally, you can include a PDF or HTML file in this subdirectory.
programs: Contains SAS/IML programs that call functions in the package. For example, this subdirectory can include demo programs, test programs, and programs that reproduce results in a journal article or conference proceedings.
source: Contains the source files that are read by the PACKAGE LOAD statement. These files usually contain module definitions. The files should not contain a PROC IML statement or a QUIT statement.

The RightTriangle package does not contain a data file, so the data subdirectory remains empty. The following sections describe how to create the info.txt file and the files for the other subdirectories.

A package can contain other subdirectories in addition to these four subdirectories.

Last updated: July 20, 2026