topic Wildcards in Set Statement? in SAS Procedures

Wildcards in Set Statement?

dbillig — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 14:48:51 GMT

I have several datasets I'm trying to set together, but don't want to type each one manually because there are hundreds. Is it possible to use a wildcard to set them together somehow, like you can do in an Infile statement? I've tried Data MyFile; Set MyFile*; Run; but get a syntax error.

Thanks for any help

Wildcards in Set Statement?

art297 — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 14:52:36 GMT

Try it with set Myfile:

Wildcards in Set Statement?

dbillig — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 15:15:50 GMT

Thanks, just tried it however gave me a syntax error again, with the cursor on the ":", very weird...

Wildcards in Set Statement?

art297 — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 15:19:47 GMT

On SAS 9.2 it works for me. My log shows:

40 data want;

41 set have:;

42 run;

NOTE: There were 7 observations read from the data set WORK.HAVE.

NOTE: There were 7 observations read from the data set WORK.HAVE1.

NOTE: There were 7 observations read from the data set WORK.HAVE2.

NOTE: The data set WORK.WANT has 21 observations and 1 variables.

NOTE: DATA statement used (Total process time):

real time 0.07 seconds

cpu time 0.01 seconds

Wildcards in Set Statement?

art297 — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 15:31:35 GMT

That was added in 9.2. If you still have an older version, you could either use a pipe or proc sql to accomplish the same thing. E.g.:

proc sql noprint;

select memname into :names

separated by " "

from dictionary.tables

where libname eq "WORK" and

memname like "HAVE%"

;

quit;

data want;

set &names.;

run;

Wildcards in Set Statement?

dbillig — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 16:07:11 GMT

Perfect, got them both to work. I'm in Enterprise Guide 4.1 which explains why the colon trick didn't work at first, although as soon as I flipped over to PC SAS 9.2 it worked. The Proc SQL statement worked in both places. Thanks!!