topic Re: Delete all datasets in a Library that are in lowercase and propcase or which are not in upcase in SAS Programming

Delete all datasets in a Library that are in lowercase and propcase or which are not in upcase

vijaysas777zx — Wed, 12 Dec 2018 15:12:27 GMT

I want to delete all the datasets in a library that are in lowercase and propcase or that are not in upcase

Re: Delete all datasets in a Library that are in lowercase and propcase or which are not in upcase

PeterClemmensen — Wed, 12 Dec 2018 15:32:07 GMT

First question: Why?

Secondly, I am not sure if this is possible. As far as I know, SAS stores data set names in lowercase internally. However, someone may be smarter than me 🙂

Re: Delete all datasets in a Library that are in lowercase and propcase or which are not in upcase

Kurt_Bremser — Wed, 12 Dec 2018 15:36:03 GMT

Datasets in SAS are always stored as lowercase in the operating system and displayed as uppercase within the SAS applications.

Even when using this

data sascomm.'Some XXXX'n;
set sashelp.class;
run;

the file in the operating system is

some xxxx.sas7bdat

and shows up as

SOME XXXX

in the library in the server list on EG.

PS This test was done on a UNIX system, which has a real case-sensitive file system (as opposed to the Windows toyboxes).

Re: Delete all datasets in a Library that are in lowercase and propcase or which are not in upcase

RW9 — Wed, 12 Dec 2018 15:33:13 GMT

You would need to get a listing from the operating system for doing such a thing, the metadata defaults to all uppercase for names.

I would also ask with @PeterClemmensen, why? Doesn't make sense. I understand that linux/unix treats upper/lower case differently, and Windows doesn't, but if you need all uppercase (and personally I would go the other way and say all lowercase), then they should be created that way by some sort of company policy?

Maybe a batch script for your OS would be a simple method to go about it. Maybe:

https://superuser.com/questions/65302/is-there-a-way-to-batch-rename-files-to-lowercase