In SAS/IML 9.22 and beyond, you can call any SAS procedure, DATA step, or macro from within a SAS/IML program. The syntax is simple: place a SUBMIT statement prior to the SAS statements and place an ENDSUBMIT statement after the SAS statements.

This enables you to call any SAS procedure from within PROC IML. PROC IML remains running while the procedure runs. When the procedure exits, matrices defined prior to the SUBMIT statement are still defined after the ENDSUBMIT statement. Your SAS/IML program continues after the ENDSUBMIT statement, and it can use results created by the procedure. This feature has been in SAS/IML Studio for several years and has proven very popular.

If you've been wondering how this feature might be useful in your work, watch this video. (If your browser does not support embedded video, you can go directly to the video on You Tube.) For more details, see the chapter "Submitting SAS Statements" in the SAS/IML User's Guide.