(User Written) Transformation in SAS DIS 4.901 to process an external file

[Resa]

Hi all,

In SAS DIS I have defined an external (delimited) file with all of its properties (location, columns, etc).

My intention was to process this file using a newly created (user written) transformation instead of the default File Reader transformation, this since we like to do some preprocessing before actually reading the content of the file.

However, when I try to connect the external file to the transformation I get the message "External table requires a file reader transform". This is something I try to prevent since the outcome of the the file reader transformation is already a dataset (view) of the external file but without the preprocessing I would like.

I have also tried using a the "User Written" transform (from the Data transformation) but this does not provide me any information on the columns in the input (in this case the external file) which I need for the preprocessing.

I currently see no other options.

Has anyone any suggestions.

TIA

[LinusH]

Perhaps you could try the User Written File object. It represents a file but let you write the code to read it.

[Resa]

Thanks for the suggestion. In my post I forgot to mention that we have looked into that. The drawback of that is that you have no metadata registration of the source file and its columns.
We like to have that and make use of it in our transform.