This repository contains one of a series of examples that accompany Custom Tasks for SAS Enterprise Guide using Microsoft .NET by Chris Hemedinger.

This particular example goes with Chapter 4: Meet the APIs. It was built using C# with Microsoft Visual Studio 2003. It should run in SAS Enterprise Guide 4.1 and later.

This example is meant to be used as part of an exercise in the section titled Understanding the Life Cycles of Your Task in Chapter 4. By installing and running this task with special logging options enabled, you can observe how SAS Enterprise Guide interacts with your task classes. Refer to the section in Chapter 4 for instructions.

Each of these life cycle phases accesses a different set of properties and methods and usually in a predictable sequence. Here are the three phases:

1. The task is installed and "discovered" by the application. The task name and icon appear in the application's menu.
2. The task is opened and shown (such as when a user selects the task from a menu).
3. The task is run. The term run means that the task is called to generate a SAS program or do work that creates results.

Each of these phases represents a different life cycle for the task. Your implementation of the custom task APIs is usually encapsulated in a single .NET class. Think of the task's life cycle as the sequence of property and method calls that occur within this single .NET class, from the time the class is constructed (using its default .NET constructor) until the time the class is released.