code explanation

[109393]

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

[ballardw · Accepted solution]

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.