topic dopen to open directory name that contains spaces in SAS Programming

dopen to open directory name that contains spaces

Marty — Thu, 31 May 2012 14:00:55 GMT

I am using dopen and dread to look at all of the files and directories in a particular directory structure, but dopen is failing to open directories whose names contain embedded spaces.

I'm running SAS 9.3 on a unix platform, and have escaped the spaces using the backslash (\) character, so a a directory named 'older mapping docs' is referred to as 'older\ mapping\ docs'.

The filename function to assign a fileref to the directory gives a zero (successful) return code, but when I try to use dopen to open the directory, the DID (directory ID) returned is 0, meaning the operation failed.

Any suggestions for working around this problem?

Re: dopen to open directory name that contains spaces

TimB_SAS — Thu, 31 May 2012 14:24:17 GMT

You should be able to do this without needing to escape the space. This works correctly for me:

data _null_ ;

rc=filename('mydir', "$HOME/space dir") ;

put rc=;

did=dopen('mydir') ;

put did=;

run ;

LOG:

1   data _null_ ;
2   rc=filename('mydir', "$HOME/space dir") ;
3   put rc=;
4   did=dopen('mydir') ;
5   put did=;
6   run ;

rc=0
did=1

Re: dopen to open directory name that contains spaces

Marty — Thu, 31 May 2012 15:00:23 GMT

I'm using %sysfunc to open and read the directories using macro code.

my initial code did not escape the spaces, but was not working.

I have just experimented with using %nrbquote to preserve the spaces in the macro variables, and that does seem to work - thanks!

LOG excerpt:

9 %let _dirpath=%nrbquote(/data/hdi/supptbls/wlp_edwardlz/0003_201105/medmgmt/older mapping docs);

10 %let rc=%sysfunc(filename(filrf2,%nrbquote(&_dirpath)));

11 %put rc=&rc;

rc=0

12 %let _did2=%sysfunc(dopen(&&filrf2));

13 %put _did2=&_did2;

_did2=2

Re: dopen to open directory name that contains spaces

Tom — Thu, 31 May 2012 15:25:04 GMT

I think it is because you are passing the wrong parameter value into the DOPEN call because of an extra &.

The FILENAME function call will either use the filename in the macro variable FILRF2 (or if it is empty it will make up a name and set FILRF2 to the new name). So in the call to DOPEN you should be passing the value of FILRF2.

%let dsid=%sysfunc(dopen(&FILRF2));

Re: dopen to open directory name that contains spaces

Marty — Thu, 31 May 2012 15:38:06 GMT

Sorry - that was a typo from simplifying my example. I had a double ampersand because the number at the end of the filrf variable name is being calculated, so the field reference was &&filrf&fnbr.

The log from the corrected test code is:

9 %let _dirpath=%nrbquote(/data/hdi/supptbls/wlp_edwardlz/0003_201105/medmgmt/older mapping docs);

10 %let rc=%sysfunc(filename(filrf2,%nrbquote(&_dirpath)));

11 %put rc=&rc;

rc=0

12 %let _did2=%sysfunc(dopen(&filrf2));

13 %put _did2=&_did2;

_did2=2

This is working - thanks again.