Is there any difference between file and datafile in the IMPORT step?

[Nietzsche]

Hi

I am running the following code from Programming 1.

I changed the datafile to file, the result seems to be exact the same.

is there any difference between DATAFILE and FILE?

[Kurt_Bremser]

What does the log say when you use FILE= in place of DATAFILE=?

[Nietzsche]

nothing, just ran like normal.

[Kurt_Bremser]

So it is a working, undocumented statement; I suspected that SAS might have written something to the log like "erroneous FILE option interpreted as DATAFILE".

[Nietzsche]

here are the two logs, I can't see any difference.

 1          OPTIONS NONOTES NOSTIMER NOSOURCE NOSYNTAXCHECK;
 70         
 71         proc import file="/home/u62043935/EPG1V2/data/eu_sport_trade.xlsx"
 72         dbms=xlsx
 73         out=eu_sport_trade
 74         replace;
 75         run;
 
 NOTE: One or more variables were converted because the data type is not supported by the V9 engine. For more details, run with 
       options MSGLEVEL=I.
 NOTE: The import data set has 6816 observations and 6 variables.
 NOTE: WORK.EU_SPORT_TRADE data set was successfully created.
 NOTE: PROCEDURE IMPORT used (Total process time):
       real time           0.40 seconds
       user cpu time       0.40 seconds
       system cpu time     0.00 seconds
       memory              3210.25k
       OS Memory           30632.00k
       Timestamp           15/10/2022 09:21:09 PM
       Step Count                        24  Switch Count  2
       Page Faults                       0
       Page Reclaims                     944
       Page Swaps                        0
       Voluntary Context Switches        19
       Involuntary Context Switches      0
       Block Input Operations            0
       Block Output Operations           1032
       
 
 76         
 77         OPTIONS NONOTES NOSTIMER NOSOURCE NOSYNTAXCHECK;
 88         

1          OPTIONS NONOTES NOSTIMER NOSOURCE NOSYNTAXCHECK;
 70         
 71         proc import datafile="/home/u62043935/EPG1V2/data/eu_sport_trade.xlsx"
 72         dbms=xlsx
 73         out=eu_sport_trade
 74         replace;
 75         run;
 
 NOTE: One or more variables were converted because the data type is not supported by the V9 engine. For more details, run with 
       options MSGLEVEL=I.
 NOTE: The import data set has 6816 observations and 6 variables.
 NOTE: WORK.EU_SPORT_TRADE data set was successfully created.
 NOTE: PROCEDURE IMPORT used (Total process time):
       real time           0.39 seconds
       user cpu time       0.39 seconds
       system cpu time     0.00 seconds
       memory              3178.87k
       OS Memory           30888.00k
       Timestamp           15/10/2022 09:22:25 PM
       Step Count                        30  Switch Count  4
       Page Faults                       0
       Page Reclaims                     618
       Page Swaps                        0
       Voluntary Context Switches        34
       Involuntary Context Switches      0
       Block Input Operations            0
       Block Output Operations           1032
       
 
 76         
 77         OPTIONS NONOTES NOSTIMER NOSOURCE NOSYNTAXCHECK;
 88         

[Patrick]

FILE is an Alias for DATAFILE - but if you look into a current SAS documentation you only find DATAFILE so use this name. 

SAS is highly backward compatible and therefore many things still work even though you might no more find it documented for newer versions.

SAS EG shows me the following: