topic Re: most recent file access date (atime) in SAS Data Management

most recent file access date (atime)

alandool — Thu, 08 Jun 2017 13:20:18 GMT

Greetings,

On a Unix server, other than where a file has been read / opened, are there other reasons that the access date (atime) may get updated? I ask because I have files on our SAS Grid (EG 7.1 / Platform version: 9.4) that show a recent access date although I know the files have not been recently opened / read -- in fact, it has been many months or years since accessed by a SAS process.

Additionally, we are trying to build a file monitoring process based on most recent access date (atime). Thinking that maybe we should be using last modification date (mtime) instead, if there are issues with using atime.

Alan

Re: most recent file access date (atime)

ballardw — Thu, 08 Jun 2017 14:20:48 GMT

I suggest you ask your IT folks as the files are possibly being touched by other processes that are not SAS related.

Or if any SAS hotfixes or upgrades have been applied perhaps the hotfix checked to see if the version of the file is the correct one.

Which time to use I would say depends on the purpose of the file monitoring: use or change. You may end up needing both.

Re: most recent file access date (atime)

Kurt_Bremser — Thu, 08 Jun 2017 15:53:34 GMT

Most backup software does a full backup every now and then to make handling of the incrementals easier, so that might be it.

And everytime sashelp.vtable or sashelp.vcolumn is used, SAS needs to scan through all datasets in all currently assigned libraries.

Re: most recent file access date (atime)

alandool — Thu, 08 Jun 2017 20:38:54 GMT

Thank you both ballardw and KurtBremser!

Good information. Yes, my next move was to ask our IT folks. KurtBremser hit on the reason I believe. I used sashelp.vtable recently and had several libnames set. Thank you both for your help.

Forever learning . . .

Alan

Re: most recent file access date (atime)

alandool — Thu, 08 Jun 2017 20:42:02 GMT

Actually, @Kurt_Bremser sashelp.vtable reply was the answer to this issue, I believe,

Alan