topic Re: deleting files from a folder in SAS Programming

deleting files from a folder

arde — Tue, 08 Oct 2019 16:59:04 GMT

Hi,

Is there a way to delete certain files from a folder? I have a conversion program that creates a bunch of csv files. However, I would like to delete all the files that begin with "DES" since they're not needed. Is there a step I can add to the conversion program to delete the DES files?

Any help is truly appreciated.

Thanks

Re: deleting files from a folder

Reeza — Tue, 08 Oct 2019 17:28:34 GMT

FDELETE() will delete a file. Without seeing the rest of your conversion program it's hard to say what is possible.

Re: deleting files from a folder

arde — Tue, 08 Oct 2019 17:35:00 GMT

Is there a way to say in FDELETE to delete any file that starts with "DES"

Re: deleting files from a folder

Reeza — Tue, 08 Oct 2019 17:36:33 GMT

You can try a wild card, "DES*.txt" and see what happens. That works in other commands....

Re: deleting files from a folder

arde — Tue, 08 Oct 2019 18:00:37 GMT

I'm not familiar with macros or fdelete. But I found this on the sas website and modified it:

%macro check(file);
%if %sysfunc(fileexist(&file)) ge 1 %then %do;
%let rc=%sysfunc(filename(temp,&file));
%let rc=%sysfunc(fdelete(&temp));
%end;
%else %put The file &file does not exist;
%mend check;

%check(C:\Desktop\Excel\DES*.csv)

It didn't work though

Re: deleting files from a folder

SuryaKiran — Tue, 08 Oct 2019 18:23:34 GMT

Hello,

It depends on what environment your working on. Windows or Unix/Linux. Did you try the X-commands (run system commands from SAS).

In UNIX/LINUX:

X "find -name . 'DES*' -exec rm {} \;";

In Windows:

X "Get-ChildItem -include DES* -recurse -force | Remove-Item -force";

In some environments (Unix) SAS users are restricted to run commands, in that case you may try:

/* Read files in a folder */

%let path=/user/files;

FILENAME _folder_ "%bquote(&path.)";
data filenames(keep=memname);
  handle=dopen( '_folder_' );
  if handle > 0 then do;
    count=dnum(handle);
    do i=1 to count;
      memname=dread(handle,i);
      if substr(memname,1,3)='Wra' then output filenames;
    end;
  end;
  rc=dclose(handle);
run;
filename _folder_ clear;



/* delete files identified in above step */
data _null_;
set filenames;
fname = 'todelete';
rc = filename(fname, quote(cats("&path",'/',memname)));
rc = fdelete(fname);
rc = filename(fname);
run;

Re: deleting files from a folder

Reeza — Tue, 08 Oct 2019 18:28:36 GMT

1. Lookup the documentation on FDELETE and try deleting a single file
2. Try deleting a series of files using wildcard
3. Once it's working, incorporate it into your code.

Re: deleting files from a folder

Reeza — Tue, 08 Oct 2019 18:57:14 GMT

It looks like FDELETE() does not support wildcards so you're best off using SYSEXEC() and a command instead. That would be like:

Be careful with the quotes there.

x 'rm "path to file\DES*.extension"';

Re: deleting files from a folder

Avinash14 — Mon, 12 Feb 2024 21:33:23 GMT

Thanks Suryakiran. Your code works perfectly fine for me.