topic Re: Readin in datasets from a mainframe host in SAS Programming

Readin in datasets from a mainframe host

Tal — Thu, 20 Apr 2017 01:02:58 GMT

Hi,
I have 10 equal datasets to read in and append to each other using the "for" loop
When i run that process from pc sas( i use ftp to access the datasets) it works fine but when i do it from within unix sas i get a 0 result
Would any of you have any ecplanaiton what could cause that?

Thx

Re: Readin in datasets from a mainframe host

andreas_lds — Thu, 20 Apr 2017 07:35:34 GMT

Posting code and log will help to answer your question.

Re: Readin in datasets from a mainframe host

ballardw — Thu, 20 Apr 2017 14:46:35 GMT

You might show the code from the log that is showing a "0 result"

Some things FTP connections may interpret the data differently depending on your transfer settings, binary or text, and the text result may not match the code developed for windows as end of line is different between the two.

Case sensitivity to names rears an ugly head

Path construction/referrences

Permissions (the Unix box can't connect at all for some reason)

Re: Readin in datasets from a mainframe host

Tal — Thu, 20 Apr 2017 15:23:48 GMT

this is insane,

now after so many attempts this thing worked in my unix box too. So now i am still wondering what is it that happened in between?

I changed nothing,just ran the code 10 times

Re: Readin in datasets from a mainframe host

Tom — Thu, 20 Apr 2017 15:28:01 GMT

Hard to say without seeing logs. A non uncommon problem is setting macro variables in wrong order. So the first attempt fails because you have haven't defined the macro variable before using it. Then you run again and it works because it used the macro variable you defined at some point later in the first attempt.

Re: Readin in datasets from a mainframe host

Tal — Thu, 20 Apr 2017 15:35:33 GMT

but god knows how many times i tried to run yesterday and even this morning

i attached the code and the logs so if you guys have time to go over and let me know if you see anyhting strange.

I just worry that the issue i had might come back

Re: Readin in datasets from a mainframe host

ballardw — Thu, 20 Apr 2017 16:01:25 GMT

@Tal wrote:

but god knows how many times i tried to run yesterday and even this morning

i attached the code and the logs so if you guys have time to go over and let me know if you see anyhting strange.

I just worry that the issue i had might come back

Perhaps the FTP server was having availability or response issues?

An example of the log when it fails might be more informative.

Also running with options MPRINT and SYMBOLGEN may be helpful in debugging if this occurs in the future.

I see several places where you are using:

Data datasetname;

set datasetname;

coding structure. Since when these go wrong you have replaced the input set debugging can get harder because you can't do a before/after comparison to validate that everything when as planned.

Re: Readin in datasets from a mainframe host

Tal — Thu, 20 Apr 2017 16:10:38 GMT

i just took this code over yesterday and will definately make some changes

thanks for mentioning the mprint and symbolgen .Those 2 can be helpful,yes.

The funny thing is i tried to access individially each of the 27 datasets. At some moments i could open the first 2 and i could not the rest then there were moments when i could open all of them but after running the entire code it would fail and the logs wont tell me more than what i sent you.Everyhting seemes fine and it just says 0 records were written to....

Will use the mprint and symbolgen as those make the log more detailed

Thank you guys for your insights

Re: Readin in datasets from a mainframe host

Tom — Thu, 20 Apr 2017 16:15:47 GMT

Another issue to consider is are you using a GRID environment on Unix? Is it possible that some of the nodes are not properly configured to connect to the FTP site?

Re: Readin in datasets from a mainframe host

Tal — Thu, 20 Apr 2017 16:23:40 GMT

as a matter of fact i changed the node today and after a few attempts it worked . Dont know... maybe that was what troubled me

Good point to remember . Thanks