SAS Libraries

[darling143]

hi

when i was attended interview they asked me

HOW CAN YOU GET LATEST DATASET FROM SAS LIBRARIES ?

I AM NEW TO SAS PLEASE LET ME KNOW AND EXPLAIN IT?

[Reeza]

What was your answer?

[LinusH]

SAS data set files have a last modified date (like any other OS file).
This information is available through SAS file Metadata, and accessible through various ways, like PROC CONTENTS, data step SAS file functions and also through the automatic data dictionary SASHELP.CLASS-STORA.VMEMBER.
Explore these alternatives, an excellent way to learn SAS and managing SAS files.

[LinusH]

Sorry, I blame autocorrect.
SASHELP.VMEMBER it should read...

[Reeza]

SASHELP.VTABLE has the create/modified date.

[Ksharp · Accepted solution]

It is more like a OS Admin question.
But you can query DICTIONARY TABLE to get it . There is a variable name MODIFIED DATE :


proc sql;
select * 
 from dictionary.tables
  where libname='SASHELP';
quit;



Library Name	Member Name	Member Type	DBMS Member Type	Data Set Label	Data Set Type	Date Created	Date Modified	Number of Physical Observations	Observation Length	Number of Variables	Type of Password Protection	Compression Routine	Encryption	Number of Pages	Size of File	Percent Compression	Reuse Space	Bufsize	Number of Deleted Observations	Number of Logical Observations	Longest variable name	Longest label	Maximum number of generations	Generation number	Data Set Attributes	Type of Indexes	Data Representation	Name of Collating Sequence	Sorting Type	Charset Sorted By	Requirements Vector	Data Representation Name	Data Encoding	Audit Trail Active?	Audit Before Image?	Audit Admin Image?	Audit Error Image?	Audit Data Image?	Number of Character Variables	Number of Numeric Variables
SASHELP	AACOMP	DATA	 	 	DATA	18JUN15:06:23:43	18JUN15:06:23:43	2020	1269	4	---	CHAR	NO	6	458752	85	no	65536	0	2020	6	0	0	.	ON	COMPOSITE	NATIVE	 	SK	ANSI	181F101133220033330102310133012333001C0000200301	SOLARIS_X86_64, LINUX_X86_64, ALPHA_TRU64, LINUX_IA64	us-ascii ASCII (ANSI)	no	no	no	no	no	3	1
SASHELP	AARFM	DATA	 	 	DATA	28MAY15:08:58:48	28MAY15:08:58:48	61	1269	4	---	CHAR	NO	3	262144	0	no	65536	0	61	6	0	0	.	ON	COMPOSITE	NATIVE	 	SK	ANSI	181F101133220033330102310133012333001C0000200301	SOLARIS_X86_64, LINUX_X86_64, ALPHA_TRU64, LINUX_IA64	us-ascii ASCII (ANSI)	no	no	no	no	no	3	1

[JohnHoughton]

 Hi,

Could the interviewer have been looking for one of the automatic macro variables, SYSLAST or SYSDSN, both of which have details of the most recently created SAS data set

[darling143]

how can i write this in programing ?

[Cynthia_sas]

Hi:
We have an example of using %PUT with the automatic Macro variables in our Programming 2 class. To learn about the automatic macro variables, here's the documentation site:
http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/mcrolref/67912/HTML/default/viewer.htm#n18mk1d0g1j31in1q...

Your original question is nearly impossible to answer:
"How can you get latest dataset from SAS libraries?" -- because too much is unknown? For what purpose? Just a list of the latest dataset? To use the latest dataset in a subsequent program? What, exactly do they mean by the "latest" dataset? The last dataset created? The last dataset modified? The last dataset deleted? What do you mean by the word "get" -- "get the name", "get the data"? My tendency is to think that they were looking for &SYSLAST, which would show an understanding of at least Programming 1 and Programming 2 level concepts and skills. But,, it is nearly impossible to explain how you can write "this" in programming since the "this" you want has so many unknowns.

cynthia