improve the readability of the about section and increase length of internal directory variable to handle very deep directories (from 1024 to 4096), also adding k functions where appropriate

[stephanweigandt]

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[stephanweigandt]

This pull request addresses issue #165 and a bit more.

[snlwih]

Hi Stephan (@stephanweigandt),

Thanks for providing this fix and also using k functions for string manipulations to things work properly when strings contain contain multi-byte encoded characters.

Will merge it as-is, but wanted to create some awareness of the best practice of removing all SAS macros and SAS macro variables that you as a step author created yourself in the codegen. Btw. this is part of _template.step.

/***
  Delete user-defined SAS macros and SAS macro variables using nowarn option.
  Using nowarn to prevent warning messages in SAS log in case the item does not exist because
  it is only created conditionally depending on user selections. A valid use case. 
  Using nowarn avoids the need for the step author to add additional logic that first checks whether
  the item exists before trying to delete it.
***/
%symdel mymacrovar1 / nowarn;
%symdel mymacrovar2 / nowarn;
...
%sysmacdelete mymacro1 / nowarn;
%sysmacdelete mymacro2 / nowarn;

[snlwih]

SAS Internal Due Diligence Review - COMPLETED on 09OCT2024