topic Re: Calling SAS files from "physical" location in SAS Programming

Calling SAS files from "physical" location

Mscarboncopy — Tue, 06 May 2025 16:59:40 GMT

Hello,

I need to save SAS files locally so others can access them (it cannot be saved in my SAS library). This is data being extracted from REDCap. With each one of my weekly data extractions I create multiple SAS files (A1 A2 A3 etc) that must be merged weekly, to create a database to be used in a code that compares new records with old ones for issues.

My code to call and merge these files only works for the latest created file, in this case A5, it tells me files 1 to 4 do not exist. Files I have saved in my computer in previous weeks.

What am I missing?

Libname CHECK 'C:my desktop folder where the SAS files (A1 to A5) are';

%macro combine;

data want;

set

%do i = 1 %to 5;

A&i

%end;

;

run;

%mend;

%combine;

**********************************

I appreciate your help.

Re: Calling SAS files from "physical" location

PaigeMiller — Tue, 06 May 2025 17:06:23 GMT

..in this case A5, it tells me files 1 to 4 do not exist

Do not paraphrase the messages. We need the exact word-for-word message. The best way is to show us the ENTIRE log from running this macro.

Please run this command first, to turn on macro debugging.

options mprint;

Then run your macro, and paste the log into the window that appears when you click on the </> icon. Do not skip this step.

And from now on, if you get errors, please do show us the log. Don't wait until we ask.

Re: Calling SAS files from "physical" location

Tom — Tue, 06 May 2025 17:40:11 GMT

If you reference a dataset using a single name like A1 or A2 then it will look for WORK.A1 or WORK.A2. WORK datasets are removed when your SAS session ends.

If you want to instead find CHECK.A1 then say so in the SAS code you ask the macro processor to generate.

Note if you just want to check a set of datasets that end with a sequence of integers then there is no need for macro code. You can use a list of dataset names instead like this:

data want;
  set check.a1 - check.a2;
run;

Re: Calling SAS files from "physical" location

Mscarboncopy — Tue, 06 May 2025 20:54:10 GMT

This is what my log shows. The issue seems to be that the macro code is searching for the files in my SAS library but they are not there. How do I change this code to look for these files A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 in my desktop? Maybe there isn't a way.

options mprint;

15198 %macro combine;

15199

15200

15201 data ALL;

15202 set

15203 %do i = 1 %to 5;

15204 A&i

15205 %end;

15206 ;

15207 run;

15208

15209 %mend;

15210

15211 %combine;

MPRINT(COMBINE): data ALL;

MPRINT(COMBINE): set A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 ;

ERROR: File MYSAS.A1.DATA does not exist.

ERROR: File MYSAS.A2.DATA does not exist.

ERROR: File MYSAS.A3.DATA does not exist.

ERROR: File MYSAS.A4.DATA does not exist.

MPRINT(COMBINE): run;

NOTE: The SAS System stopped processing this step because of errors.

WARNING: The data set MYSAS.ALL may be incomplete. When this step was stopped there were 0

observations and 16 variables.

NOTE: DATA statement used (Total process time):

real time 0.00 seconds

cpu time 0.00 seconds

Re: Calling SAS files from "physical" location

Mscarboncopy — Tue, 06 May 2025 21:03:22 GMT

@Tom

Thank you!! That works.

Re: Calling SAS files from "physical" location

Tom — Tue, 06 May 2025 23:00:54 GMT

For that code to generate those messages you must have set the system option USER to the value MYSAS.

It used to be if you defined a libref named USER then single names dataset references, like the A1 and A2 in your code, would reference USER.A1 and USER.A2 instead of the normal WORK.A1 and WORK.A2. At some point in the last 20 years or so SAS added the USER system option where you could name a different libref instead.

You original code was making a libref named CHECK. But I did not see any code to make a libref named MYSAS.

Re: Calling SAS files from "physical" location

Mscarboncopy — Wed, 07 May 2025 21:13:20 GMT

The code for mysas was not shared. Between the first question in the thread from @paige2 thank you! and your answer, I figured out the issue was exactly what you mentioned. I was not aware I could call files the way you showed me. Thank you so much @Tom