topic cannot use ../ in the linux sas pipe in SAS Programming

cannot use ../ in the linux sas pipe

fanfanpao — Fri, 04 Oct 2019 11:30:36 GMT

suppose i have folder new and a subfolder new1 within it. i have 3 txt files in folder new. my program is in new1. i want to get the file name of 3 text files. the code is filename aa pipe "ls ../*.txt". but the log show no such files. but when run the ls command in the terminal, it show all 3 file name. why?

Re: cannot use ../ in the linux sas pipe

Kurt_Bremser — Fri, 04 Oct 2019 11:43:05 GMT

Please post the whole code you used with the filename pipe.

And keep in mind that the commandline has a different current working directory than the SAS workspace server.

Re: cannot use ../ in the linux sas pipe

yabwon — Fri, 04 Oct 2019 12:02:08 GMT

Are the SAS "./" and commandline's "./" the same?
Try "pwd; ls ../*.txt:?
Bart

Re: cannot use ../ in the linux sas pipe

fanfanpao — Fri, 04 Oct 2019 12:10:10 GMT

pls note that i run the code in the batch mode. i assume ./ is the same path of the program, and ../ is the path of up level folder of the program. i will take a try of pwd command later. thank you both.

Re: cannot use ../ in the linux sas pipe

ballardw — Mon, 07 Oct 2019 21:05:48 GMT

I never use relative paths and always start from a drive or root mount point just in case something like a batch system for some reason has a different execution default locations(different config files can do that).

Re: cannot use ../ in the linux sas pipe

ChrisNZ — Mon, 07 Oct 2019 22:15:08 GMT

The execution location is not necessarily that of the program file.

See your config file(s).

Re: cannot use ../ in the linux sas pipe

Kurt_Bremser — Tue, 08 Oct 2019 06:42:35 GMT

@fanfanpao wrote:
pls note that i run the code in the batch mode.

Please note that (as an example) sasbatch.sh in Lev1/SASApp/Batchserver calls Lev1/SASApp/ calls appservercontext_env.sh, which explicitly sets the working directory to Lev1/SASApp.

Similar things can (and will) happen in other SAS batch scripts.

Bottom line: NEVER use a relative path unless you have already explicitly set the required current working directory yourself. See Maxim 31.

Re: cannot use ../ in the linux sas pipe

yabwon — Tue, 08 Oct 2019 08:59:02 GMT

Hi @fanfanpao ,

one another thing which came into my mind, if you know the "wanted" starting location in advance, would be use of DLGCDIR() function, to change current working directory, like in the example:

%put *%sysfunc(pathname(WORK))*;
%put *%sysfunc(DLGCDIR(%sysfunc(pathname(WORK))))*;

filename test "."; /*fileref to working dir*/
filename test list;
filename test clear;

which in my case gave:

1
2    %put *%sysfunc(pathname(WORK))*;
*C:\SAS_Temporary_Files\_TD4300_H48LBFI12PS0510_*
3    %put *%sysfunc(DLGCDIR(%sysfunc(pathname(WORK))))*;
NOTE: The current working directory is now "C:\SAS_Temporary_Files\_TD4300_H48LBFI12PS0510_".
*0*
4
5    filename test "."; /*fileref to working dir*/
6    filename test list;
NOTE: Fileref= TEST
      Physical Name= C:\SAS_Temporary_Files\_TD4300_H48LBFI12PS0510_
7    filename test clear;
NOTE: Fileref TEST has been deassigned.

One disadvantage, it requires SAS 9.4M5 (or 4) to work.

All the best

Bart