topic Re: checking for file existence in SAS Procedures

checking for file existence

Tal — Sun, 08 Oct 2017 18:28:39 GMT

hello people,

the macro below does not recognize "myinput1" and it only throws an output :"The file myinput1 does not exist"

why? How can fix this? please anyone. Thx

filename myinput1 ftp " 'XYZ.C.M.DATA.XYZZ.G0049V00' " user=** pass=*** host="xyz.com";

%let testfile = myinput1;

%macro findit;
%if %sysfunc(fileexist(&testfile)) %then %do;
%put good;
%end;
%else %put The file &testfile does not exist. ;
%mend;

%findit;

Re: checking for file existence

Kurt_Bremser — Sun, 08 Oct 2017 19:02:57 GMT

Read the documentation for fileexist():

Argument

file-name

is a character constant, variable, or expression that specifies a fully qualified physical filename of the external file in the operating environment.

You can't use a fileref.

Re: checking for file existence

Tal — Sun, 08 Oct 2017 19:09:01 GMT

thanks a lot sir!

So there is no way I can check for existence of file in the mainframe host?

Re: checking for file existence

SASKiwi — Sun, 08 Oct 2017 19:45:51 GMT

You can only use FILEEXIST to check for the existence of a file that is available locally to SAS, not remotely via an FTP link. You would actually have to try to read the file via FTP to confirm it exists or alternatively a "directory list" - not sure how to do this on a mainframe via FTP.

Re: checking for file existence

Shmuel — Sun, 08 Oct 2017 20:06:53 GMT

I'm not sure it will help because you use ftp engine, but you may try:

%macro findit;                                 
  %let fid=%sysfunc(fopen(testfile));
  %if %eval(&fid) > 0  %then %do;
        %put good;                                        
  %end;                                          
  %else %put Cannot open the file &testfile  ;
%mend;

Re: checking for file existence

Tal — Sun, 08 Oct 2017 21:57:05 GMT

Just tried but not working Shmuel,

Anyway so I guess this is not doable then. Thanks for your help guys

Re: checking for file existence

Kurt_Bremser — Mon, 09 Oct 2017 05:17:03 GMT

@Tal wrote:

thanks a lot sir!

So there is no way I can check for existence of file in the mainframe host?

Run a directory listing (filename ftp can do this), and check the output.

Re: checking for file existence

Tal — Mon, 09 Oct 2017 05:20:33 GMT

Sorry i dont know what you mean

Re: checking for file existence

Kurt_Bremser — Mon, 09 Oct 2017 08:50:52 GMT

@Tal wrote:
Sorry i dont know what you mean

Once again, I have to direct you to the SAS documentation:

http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/lrdict/64316/HTML/default/viewer.htm#a000178980.htm#a000174756

The first example shows how ro retrieve a directory listing from a remote ftp server.

While reading this infile, you can check the input line (_infile_) for the filename with the index() function.

Note that I referenced a 9.2 page, as the 9.4 online documentation seems to be mis-organized at the moment.

Edit: Link for the 9.4 documentation of the FILENAME statement, FTP method:

http://documentation.sas.com/?cdcId=pgmsascdc&cdcVersion=9.4_3.2&docsetId=lestmtsglobal&docsetTarget=p0v0ijxl1k6d4bn16cshtic7u4i3.htm