topic Re: Last Data Set access date - how to get this info/date? in SAS Data Management

Last Data Set access date - how to get this info/date?

Krohn — Fri, 18 Mar 2016 04:18:40 GMT

Hello,

Is there a way to get the last access of some Data Set?

I know its possible to get last modified date, create date, file size, etc...

Could we know the last day someone opened or read this Data Set, by clicking or using FROM, SET, APPEND, etc?

Thanks

Re: Last Data Set access date - how to get this info/date?

Reeza — Fri, 18 Mar 2016 04:23:43 GMT

Are your datasets on a server? What does your SAS set up look like?

Re: Last Data Set access date - how to get this info/date?

Krohn — Fri, 18 Mar 2016 04:32:18 GMT

SAS Enterprise Guide 6.1
server 9.4
not sure about its setup

Re: Last Data Set access date - how to get this info/date?

Krohn — Fri, 18 Mar 2016 04:35:33 GMT

there r many shared datasets in common libraries, online for months/years..im not sure if they've been used on last 6 months, for example

Re: Last Data Set access date - how to get this info/date?

LinusH — Fri, 18 Mar 2016 05:12:12 GMT

In most operating systems there are tools for auditing open files. Check with the SAS server system administrator.

In SAS there are also means to log/audit data set/view/cube usage. But to be effective the SAS administrator must lock down access to data that bypass intelligence server services.

Either way, this will require some substantial effort.

You will have an easier situation if all your would reside in a data base (SAS SPD Server or 3rd party).

What's the use case?

Re: Last Data Set access date - how to get this info/date?

Kurt_Bremser — Fri, 18 Mar 2016 07:40:31 GMT

On which operating system does your SAS run? (Not the EG)

Re: Last Data Set access date - how to get this info/date?

Krohn — Fri, 18 Mar 2016 11:17:44 GMT

Linux

Re: Last Data Set access date - how to get this info/date?

Kurt_Bremser — Fri, 18 Mar 2016 11:48:48 GMT

In linux, ls -ul filename will display the last access time.

Try:

filename oscmd pipe "ls -ul &filename";

data acctime;
infile oscmd;
length
  perms $10
  links 3
  user $8
  group $8
  size 8
  month $3
  day 3
  ytime $5
  fname $100
  year 3
  time 8
;
format
  time time5.
  acc_time datetime19.
;
input perms links user group size month day ytime fname;
if length(ytime) = 4
then do;
  year = input(ytime,4.);
  time = 0;
end;
else do;
  year = year(date());
  time = input(ytime,time5.);
end;
acdate = input(put(day,z2.)!!month!!put(year,z4.),date9.);
acc_time = acdate * 86400 + time;
run;

Re: Last Data Set access date - how to get this info/date?

Krohn — Fri, 18 Mar 2016 12:49:38 GMT

i tried it but i got the last modified time with this command, even though ls --help says that means access time
gonna try soon again n carefully

Re: Last Data Set access date - how to get this info/date?

Kurt_Bremser — Fri, 18 Mar 2016 12:57:05 GMT

Reading http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/8840/last-time-file-opened closely, it may be that your filesystem is mounted with the noatime option, which prevents recording of access times for performance reasons. If your filesystem has mainly SAS data, mounting it without noatime should not be a problem, as with SAS the files are relatively large, and open/close are rare operations compared to file read/write.