The fastest/efficient way to check sas7bdat files damage?

[Ksharp]

/*
You also could try copy dataset.
If it was corrupted,you would see an error info in log.
*/

%let path= c:\temp  ;


options validvarname=any validmemname=extend nofmterr ;
filename x pipe %sysfunc(quote(dir "&path.\*.sas7bdat" /s /b));
data _null_;
infile x length=len;
input path $varying200. len;
call execute(catt("options obs=1;data x;set '",path,"';run;"));
run;

options obs=max;

[BrianVarney]

I was recently tasked with this and found that the fastest and easiest way to test a data set is using a procedure like proc print as shown below with the obs=0 option on the data set. No matter how large the SAS data set is, it runs in a fraction of a second and produces no output to the results window.

proc print data=<SAS data set name>(obs=0);

run;

Or

proc print data="<full file path to sas7bdat file>"(obs=0);

run;

The latter method is better in case the file is not a SAS data set and does not show up in the SAS library. It will return a damaged message or a message stating that it is not a SAS data set.

Cheers,

  Brian