topic Re: Update to all SAS programs in a folder in New SAS User

Update to all SAS programs in a folder

SASPhile — Mon, 29 Jul 2019 16:42:18 GMT

I would like to make changes in all SAS programs in a folder.

For example I would like to replace "Apple" with "Orange" in all the programs that has "Apple". Is there a way to it in one shot?

Re: Update to all SAS programs in a folder

PaigeMiller — Mon, 29 Jul 2019 16:50:40 GMT

You could write SAS code that reads each line of each program in the folder, and then changes "Apple" to "Orange", and then writes the text out to a new file. I wouldn't be surprised if some program to do this already exists. And of course, there are non-SAS ways to accomplish this as well.

If the text in this example is something like a server location, or something else that you know might change in the future, I handle this by setting a macro variable with the location of the server location in my AUTOEXEC file, and then I use this macro variable in every program that refers to this server location. At some point in the future, when the server location changes, I only have to change the value of the macro variable assigned in the AUTOEXEC, and all my programs will refer to the new server location.

Re: Update to all SAS programs in a folder

Kurt_Bremser — Mon, 29 Jul 2019 18:37:59 GMT

Aside from contemplating the use of (a) macro variable(s), as @PaigeMiller suggested, this might also be an opportunity (if you work on a UNIX system) to get yourself acquainted with find and awk.

Re: Update to all SAS programs in a folder

SASPhile — Thu, 01 Aug 2019 20:34:12 GMT

But the OS is Windows.

Re: Update to all SAS programs in a folder

PaigeMiller — Thu, 01 Aug 2019 22:14:55 GMT

Google finds many utilities that will do this. Search for

bulk change text in folder

Re: Update to all SAS programs in a folder

andreas_lds — Mon, 05 Aug 2019 05:26:15 GMT

Can you use powershell? Or, if you have notepad++ you can use it to modify all files in a folder.