topic Re: how to delete a weird directory from within SAS? in SAS Programming

how to delete a weird directory from within SAS?

Newlifewithegg — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 19:21:49 GMT

I use sas studio and mistakenly created a weird directory by a wrong sas statement as

options dlcreatedir

libname myname "output;

and the directory created is

output;OPTIONS NONOTES NOSTIMER NOSOURCE NOSYNTAXCHECK;ODS HTML CLOSE;GOPTIONS NOACCESSIBLE;; ;*';*

my question is, how to possibly delete this directory from within SAS?

Re: how to delete a weird directory from within SAS?

Newlifewithegg — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 19:23:07 GMT

please ignore the syntax error coming with a missing ; following dlcreatedir

Re: how to delete a weird directory from within SAS?

Reeza — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 19:58:43 GMT

Do you have the log? It should have the path the folder is created/assigned.

If so, navigate to that location using Servers Files Folders Pane and delete the folder created.

Re: how to delete a weird directory from within SAS?

Newlifewithegg — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 20:11:40 GMT

Thanks, I definitely am able to remove it with system operations outside of SAS. But the purpose here is to practice with SAS, thus am asking whether there is way to deal with this case within SAS.

Re: how to delete a weird directory from within SAS?

Quentin — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 20:28:48 GMT

You can try the FDELETE() function:

filename testdir 'physical-filename';
data _null_;
   rc=fdelete('testdir');
   put rc=;
   msg=sysmsg();
   put msg=;
run;

Example is from the documentation:

https://documentation.sas.com/doc/en/pgmsascdc/9.4_3.5/lefunctionsref/p0h945u5r0cv6yn1u6qs35hiqt9t.htm

Re: how to delete a weird directory from within SAS?

Reeza — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 20:30:13 GMT

You mean using code rather than the GUI I assume?

In that case, FDELETE is the simplest way as shown by @Quentin

Re: how to delete a weird directory from within SAS?

Kurt_Bremser — Wed, 14 Jun 2023 20:34:20 GMT

Make sure no datasets exist in the library, then de-assign the libname first:

proc datasets lib=output kill;
quit;
libname myname clear;

Then run:

data _null_;
rc= fdelete("output;OPTIONS NONOTES NOSTIMER NOSOURCE NOSYNTAXCHECK;ODS HTML CLOSE;GOPTIONS NOACCESSIBLE;; ;*';*");
run;

Re: how to delete a weird directory from within SAS?

Newlifewithegg — Thu, 15 Jun 2023 05:44:55 GMT

Thank you all for your help. Seems the issue is more fundamental and nearly irrelevant to sas programming. The weird filename cannot be be copy/pasted to sas studio environment, it can only be pasted into word/textbox etc environments.

Another more complete solution can be found at

https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Programming/delete-a-folder-directory-and-all-files-on-it/td-p/584870

if the directory contains files