getting the last modified file

[alepage]

Hello, 

Is there a way to eliminate the file extension.

%macro lastmodifiedfile2(path,string,MName);

/** Change the filename below to the following to run on UNIX **/
/** filename test pipe "ls &path -rt"; **/

/** Change the filename below to the following to run on Windows **/
/** filename test pipe "dir &path /od /t:w /b"; **/

/*filename test pipe "ls &path -rt";*/
/*filename test pipe "ls &path -rt|basename |grep &string.";*/
filename test pipe "ls &path -rt|grep &string. ";

data _null_;
infile test;
input;
call symputx("&Mname.",_infile_,'g');
run;

%put Last file to be modified in &path is: &Mname.;

%mend lastmodifiedfile2;

%lastmodifiedfile2(&soudest1.,&suffix1., FName1);

%put &Fname1. 

&Fname1 is equal to pilote_2017_2021_validation_v004.mdf.0.0.0.spds9

Is there an extra command I can add to get only pilote_2017_2021_validation_v004

Regards,

[jarapoch · Accepted solution]

Have you tried SCAN function in the call symputx? 

Something like that:

%macro lastmodifiedfile2(path,string,MName);

/** Change the filename below to the following to run on UNIX **/
/** filename test pipe "ls &path -rt"; **/

/** Change the filename below to the following to run on Windows **/
/** filename test pipe "dir &path /od /t:w /b"; **/

/*filename test pipe "ls &path -rt";*/
/*filename test pipe "ls &path -rt|basename |grep &string.";*/
filename test pipe "ls &path -rt|grep &string. ";

data _null_;
infile test;
input;
call symputx("&Mname.",scan(_infile_,1,'.'),'g');
run;

%put Last file to be modified in &path is: &Mname.;

%mend lastmodifiedfile2;


%lastmodifiedfile2(&soudest1.,&suffix1., FName1);

[Kurt_Bremser]

I would rather use FINDC with "B", so I get the position of the last period; filenames might contain more than one period, and only the last is wanted to remove the extension.

call symputx("&Mname.",substr(_infile_,1,findc(_infile_,".","b")-1),"g");

And to only get the first filename returned by the external command, STOP at the end of the data step, so that only one iteration is performed.

Or add another command:

ls &path -rt|grep &string. |head -1

[alepage]

Hello Mr. Kurt Bremser,

I have communicate with you in the past and I know that you are very strong in SAS as in Unix. Could you please provide me a link where I can get a good PDF document to learn Unix.

Also, this command filename test pipe "ls &path -rt|grep &string. |head -1"; did not give me the expected result which should be for example: pilote_2017_2021_scenario_v003

[Kurt_Bremser]

ls -rt gives you the files in reverse order of the modification time. grep filters out those files containing the string in the name, and head -1 filters the first line.

Adding l to the ls call (ls -lrt) displays (among other things) the modification time.

So you could read the results of the simple ls -lrt into a dataset, and inspect that.

"Learning UNIX" is so broad that it dwarfs "learning Shakespeare", by orders of magnitude.

Start with the basic utilities you will use:

ls

cd

cp

mv

rm

pwd

more (or its more modern brother less)

cat

echo

grep

find

head

tail

kill

Next, make yourself familar with the most widely used shell, bash, and how to write scripts in it.

Doing a google search for "command manual" will quickly lead you to resources for the command.

A good starting point will also be the the manufacturer's website, like this for IBM's AIX.

[Kurt_Bremser]

If, OTOH, you want to extract

pilote_2017_2021_validation_v004

from

pilote_2017_2021_validation_v004.mdf.0.0.0.spds9

then the SCAN method is valid.

Examples like this show how hard it can be to make a macro so flexible that it deals with all possible scenarios; in the end you end up doing more work on the macro than the discrete solutions would need.