topic Re: Getting RECFM and LRECL of a file on Unix in SAS Programming

Getting RECFM and LRECL of a file on Unix

Magdalena318 — Wed, 02 Nov 2022 16:21:51 GMT

Dear community,

How could I get the values of RECFM and LRECL of an arbitrary file on Unix.

I know that on Windows I could simply use foptname function but on Unix these options are not available.

Thank you in advance!

Re: Getting RECFM and LRECL of a file on Unix

AllanBowe — Wed, 02 Nov 2022 18:51:51 GMT

What are you trying to achieve with the file?

The options used depend very much on what you need to do with it..

Re: Getting RECFM and LRECL of a file on Unix

Kurt_Bremser — Wed, 02 Nov 2022 19:31:43 GMT

UNIX (like Windows) does not have the concept of file organization, this is strictly a feature of older mainframe systems like z/OS (MVS, previously OS/360). To UNIX and Windows, a file is simply a stream of bytes.

Therefore the FINFO function cannot give you this information, as it does not exist.

For the purpose of reading a specially formatted file, the programmer needs to supply these parameters, and for this he/she needs the documentation of the fiie.