Macrotizing file name in infile file reference

[Walternate]

Hi everyone,

I'm having a very strange problem. I have a program which refers to a zip file using a filename statement:

filename zip1 zip "&dir./&file..zip";

Then later, I try to read in a SAS file from within the zip file using the infile statement:

data _null_;

    infile zip1(C:/dirname/filename.sas7bdat)

        lrecl=256 recfm=F length=length eof=eof unbuf;

   -other unrelated stuff-

run;

This works just fine. The issue is that I wanted to automatically generate the name of the SAS file. I set up a step to do this and it produces exactly the value I wanted (C:/dirname/filename.sas7bdat). 

The issue is that the data _null_ step above will work if I use the value of the macro variable written out (C:/dirname/filename.sas7bdat), but will generate an error message if I substitute that with &macrovar. I tried putting " " around &macrovar (no help), and macrotizing just parts of the filepath (which worked fine, but I want to macrotize the whole thing). 

The error message I get says that the SAS file does not exist within the zip file. 

Any help is much appreciated!

[Reeza]

Show your code that isn't working.

[Walternate]

filename zip1 zip "&dir./&file..zip";
filename ds "%sysfunc(getoption(work))/test.sas7bdat";

/* Read the "members" (files) from the ZIP file */
data contents (keep=memname isfolder);
    length memname $200 isfolder 8;
    fid=dopen("zip1");
    if fid=0 then
        stop;
    memcount=dnum(fid);
    do i=1 to memcount;
        memname=dread(fid,i);
        isFolder = (first(reverse(trim(memname)))='/');
        output;
    end;
    rc=dclose(fid);
run;

data _null_;
    set contents;
    if index(memname, "arc") > 0 then
        call symput('fname', memname);
run;

data _null_;
    infile zip1(&fname)
        lrecl=256 recfm=F length=length eof=eof unbuf;
    file ds lrecl=256 recfm=N;
    input;
    put _infile_ $varying256. length;
    return;
    eof:
    stop;
run;

[Reeza · Accepted solution]

data _null_;
    set contents;
    if index(memname, "arc") > 0 then
        call symputx('fname', memname);
run;

%put &fname;

Can you run the following and post the log- note the change to call symputX - adding X.

[Kurt_Bremser]

Since your problem seems to be with the first statement of that code, the rest is irrelevant. What's really important is the code that creates the two macro variables &dir and &file. Please show us that.

And if your problem happens later here:

data _null_;
    set contents;
    if index(memname, "arc") > 0 then
        call symput('fname', memname);
run;

 

you should use call symputx, as it trims leading and trailing blanks:

data _null_;
set contents;
if index(memname, "arc") > 0
then call symputx('fname', memname);
run;

 

Note that this will get you only the last entry in contents that satisfies the condition.