topic Filename Statement in SAS Procedures

Filename Statement

ariel_fj — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 15:09:46 GMT

Can filename statment read extenal files in a disk other than C disk? if so, what is wrong with my code?

My code:"

filename political ('F:\Homework\SASDatafile\political.csv');

data Vote;
infile political dsd;
input State $ Party $ Age;
run;"

and the log:"

105 filename political ('F:\Homework\SASDatafile\political.csv');
ERROR: Invalid logical name.
ERROR: Error in the FILENAME statement.
106
107 data Vote;
108 infile political dsd;
109 input State $ Party $ Age;
110 run;

ERROR: Physical file does not exist, C:\Program Files\SAS\SAS 9.1\POLITICAL.
NOTE: The SAS System stopped processing this step because of errors.
WARNING: The data set WORK.VOTE may be incomplete. When this step was stopped there were 0 observations and 3
variables.
WARNING: Data set WORK.VOTE was not replaced because this step was stopped."

I am just a SAS beginner....

Filename Statement

art297 — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 15:28:29 GMT

It should work unless you've typed it incorrectly or have some imbedded spaces that you aren't showing in your code. If there are imbedded spaces change the single quotes to double quotes.

Can you see the file, outside of SAS, using Windows Explorer?

Filename Statement

ariel_fj — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 16:16:32 GMT

I can see the file in csv by excel. I double checked my code and am sure there is no imbedded spaces...

The thing here I cannot understand is that

ERROR: Invalid logical name.

ERROR: Error in the FILENAME statement." &

ERROR: Physical file does not exist, C:\Program Files\SAS\SAS 9.1\POLITICAL." in log file.

It seems that the SAS tried to find my file from C disk instead of F disk. Did it?

Many Thanks!

Filename Statement

art297 — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 16:24:01 GMT

Change the name in the filename statement so that it is 8 characters or less. Thus, instead of political, try it with politic.

Filename Statement

art297 — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 16:38:43 GMT

And, for your reference, the maximum lengths of various names you can use in SAS are shown at:

http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/lrcon/62955/HTML/default/viewer.htm#a000998953.htm

Filename Statement

ariel_fj — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 03:35:27 GMT

It works after I changed the name into politic. Thanks a lot!!