topic Re: Meaning of "Not in valid format" in SAS Programming

Meaning of "Not in valid format"

ccherrub — Fri, 29 Apr 2022 18:01:45 GMT

So my code looks something like:

libname AEData "/home/u60650811/MYSAS/db1.sas7bdat"
access=readonly;
run;

Pretty simple however I don't know why I keep getting these errors:

1 OPTIONS NONOTES NOSTIMER NOSOURCE NOSYNTAXCHECK;

69 libname AEData "/home/u60650811/MYSAS/db1.sas7bdat"

70 access=readonly;

ERROR: Library AEDATA is not in a valid format for access method RANDOM.

ERROR: Error in the LIBNAME statement.

71 run;

73 OPTIONS NONOTES NOSTIMER NOSOURCE NOSYNTAXCHECK;

Kurt_Bremser — Fri, 29 Apr 2022 18:13:56 GMT

Libraries are directories containing datasets, catalogs, views. SAS datasets are files with extension .sas7bdat.

So your statement has to be

libname AEData "/home/u60650811/MYSAS";

after which you can access your dataset as aedata.db1.

Tom — Fri, 29 Apr 2022 18:32:50 GMT

You pointe the libref at a file instead of directory. Since a file is NOT a directory it is the wrong format.

Either point the libref at the directory that contains the file and use a two level name when access the dataset.

libname AEData "/home/u60650811/MYSAS"  access=readonly;
proc contents data=aedata.db1 ;
run;

Or use the quoted physical filename to reference that dataset directly.

proc contents data="/home/u60650811/MYSAS/db1.sas7bdat";
run;