run sas from r using shell function

I think your problem is that SAS tries to write a logfile to a directory where you have no write access. You can pass an alternate location for that log file (and the .out file) to SAS:

  sas_log <- tempfile()
  sas_out <- tempfile()

  cmd <- sprintf(
    'sas.exe -nosplash -icon -sysin "%s"  -log "%s" -print "%s"',
    sas_script, sas_log, sas_out
  )

 return_code  <- system(cmd)  # Runs sas and saves the return code to 

I think this should solve your problem. You will probably want your log file in the same location as whatever result your SAS script produces, and not in a obscure temporary directory.

Advanced Example:

I once wrote a wrapper function for a SAS script that includes logging and error handling. Maybe this is useful to you, but you will have to modify it a bit to make it run on your system:

library(futile.logger)
library(purrr)
library(assertthat)
library(stringi)
library(magrittr)

sasget <- function(
  infile,
  outfile = NULL,
  sas_script,
  sas_path   = "C:/Program Files/SAS/x86/SASFoundation/9.4",
  sas_config =  "C:/Program Files/SAS/x86/SASFoundation/9.4/nls/de/sasv9.cfg"
){
  # Precondtions
    assert_that(purrr::is_scalar_character(infile))
    assert_that(is.null(outfile) || purrr::is_scalar_character(outfile))
    assert_that(file.exists(sas_script))
    assert_that(dir.exists(sas_path))
    assert_that(file.exists(sas_config))


  # Process arguments
    if(is.null(outfile)) outfile <- tempfile()
    sas_log <- paste0(outfile, '.log')
    sas_out <- paste0(outfile, '.lst')


  # Launch sas job
    owd <- getwd()
    setwd(sas_path)
    on.exit(setwd(owd), add = TRUE)


    cmd <- sprintf(
      'sas.exe -nosplash -icon -sysin "%s" -set filein "%s" -set fileout "%s" -log "%s" -print "%s"',
      sas_script, infile, outfile, sas_log, sas_out)

    flog.debug('Launching SAS job')
    flog.trace(cmd)

    return_code  <- shell(cmd)  # Run SAS and retain return code


  # Process SAS Log
    log <- suppressWarnings(try(readLines(sas_log), silent = TRUE))

    errors <- log %>%
      stringi::stri_subset_regex('^ERROR.*:')
    lapply(log, flog.trace)


  # Postconditions
    ok <- TRUE

    if(!identical(return_code, 0L)){
      flog.error('SAS process returned nonzero return code: %s', return_code)
      ok <- FALSE
    }

    if(isTRUE(file.size(outfile) == 0L)){
      flog.error('SAS process returned empty file')
      ok <- FALSE
    }

    if(length(errors) > 0L){
      lapply(errors, flog.error)
      ok <- FALSE
    }

    if(ok){
      flog.debug('SAS file transfer successful')
    } else {
      flog.fatal('There were Errors, please check SAS log: %s', sas_log) %>%
        stop()
    }


  # output
  res <- outfile
  return(res)
}

Notes:

• I had to remove some code chunks that were specific to the project I was working on, I hope i didn't leave anything confusing in.
• I left the parameters infile and outfile in as an example of how to pass macro variables to a SAS script. You can use them in your SAS script like this: %let fileIn = %sysget(filein).