ERROR: Physical file does not exist

[TX_STAR]

Dear All,

I ran into problem when I put path into macros. SAS has no problem to read in the data without macros.

Below are the SAS code and log. Thanks.

********************************************************************;

%let pat=C:\Users\zzz\Desktop\EEE\Dryrun2018\;

%let percent= &pat.Percentile_from_2017\;

FILENAME PT "&percent.NN2_2017_SS_FREQ" ; /*Percentile*/

data PT;

   set PT ;

run;

938  %let pat=C:\Users\zzz\Desktop\EEE\Dryrun2018\;

939  %let percent= &pat.Percentile_from_2017\;

SYMBOLGEN:  Macro variable PAT resolves to C:\Users\zzz\Desktop\EEE\Dryrun2018\

940  FILENAME PT "&percent.NN2_2017_SS_FREQ" ; /*Percentile*/

SYMBOLGEN:  Macro variable PERCENT resolves to

            C:\Users\zzz\Desktop\EEE\Dryrun2018\Percentile_from_2017\

941

942  data PT;

943     set PT ;

944  run;

NOTE: There were 0 observations read from the data set WORK.PT.

NOTE: The data set WORK.PT has 0 observations and 0 variables.

NOTE: DATA statement used (Total process time):

      real time           0.00 seconds

      cpu time            0.00 seconds

[ballardw · Accepted solution]

The FILENAME statement is intended to reference a non-SAS file.

SET is intended to read data from a SAS library.

When you say

set PT;

SAS is looking for a data set named PT in the default LIBRARY of work. Equivalent statement would be:

set Work.PT;

If the location represented by &percent is supposed to have SAS data sets (files with extensions like sas7bdat)

then you would use a LIBNAME statement to tell SAS you expect to find or place SAS data sets in that location.

Libname PT "&percent"; for example.

Then if there is data set named NN2_2017_SS_FREQ in that library use as:

data PT;

    set PT.NN2_2017_SS_FREQ;

run;

Note the period between the library name and the data set name.

OR was FILENAME PT "&percent.NN2_2017_SS_FREQ" ; intended to reference a LIBRARY? Then use LIBNAME but you still need to use the LIBNAME.datasetname syntax.

BTW use of

Data Pt;

   set Pt;

<other code>;

run;

Overwrites the existing Pt data set and may remove or alter data such that you no longer have what you expect.

Better, at least until you are much more familiar with SAS syntax to use:

data Pt2;

   set Pt;

to avoid that.

[Reeza]

---

@TX_STAR wrote:

Dear All,

I ran into problem when I put path into macros. SAS has no problem to read in the data without macros.

---

Show us the code that works.

[TX_STAR]

I did as ballardw suggested using PT as LIBNAME rather than FILENAME. It worked.

Thanks.

🙂