code explanation

109393 — Tue, 12 Apr 2016 14:56:24 GMT

can someone please explain to me the code below and how i can make modification to it to still run, basically i am trying to edit the code to be more simple and understantable

here is the code

data dirlist;
rc=filename ("fdir","&path");
did=dopen("fdir");
if did>0 then do;
num=dnum(did);
do i = 1 to num;
fname=dread(did,i);
output;
end;
end;
run;

thank you

Re: code explanation

ballardw — Tue, 12 Apr 2016 15:11:17 GMT

This is using SAS functions to read the names of external files. Using this approach there isn't anything that will get simpler.

Basically

data dirlist;
    rc=filename ("fdir","&path");  /*Assign a reference SAS can use to a folder or directory*/
    did=dopen("fdir");   /* attempt to open the directory for reading*/
    if did>0 then do;    /* if successful opening */
       num=dnum(did);    /* get the number of files in the directory*/
       do i = 1 to num;
          fname=dread(did,i);  /* retrieve the file names*/
          output;
       end;
    end;
 run;

There are operating system options involving pipes and such to get the output of system commands with file lists and read them but they are operating system dependent.

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code explanation

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