Send Excel Attachment without file path

[CharlesFowler72]

Hi guys,

so in my work set up when im using sas I cannot accesses files directly from file paths (e.g. C:\documents\Summary.pdf) meaning I cannot open or save anything down.

What I am trying to achieve is to send a data set "D_Jumpers" as an excel attachment in an email.

At the moment the code I have is...

FILENAME mail EMAIL TO='charles.fowler@company.co.uk'

SUBJECT="D Jumpers" CONTENT_TYPE="text/html";

ODS HTML BODY=mail;
PROC PRINT DATA=D_Jumpers;
RUN;
ODS HTML CLOSE;

this puts the table in the body of the email. But I cant find anything online which puts the dataset in an excel as an attachment without referencing a "C:\filepath" anywhere.

any help? something tells me I will be able to do a slight modification on the above code that will work but not sure what it is.

thank you in advanced.

[ballardw]

---

@CharlesFowler72 wrote:

Hi guys,

so in my work set up when im using sas I cannot accesses files directly from file paths (e.g. C:\documents\Summary.pdf) meaning I cannot open or save anything down.

What I am trying to achieve is to send a data set "D_Jumpers" as an excel attachment in an email.

At the moment the code I have is...

FILENAME mail EMAIL TO='charles.fowler@company.co.uk'

SUBJECT="D Jumpers" CONTENT_TYPE="text/html";

ODS HTML BODY=mail;
PROC PRINT DATA=D_Jumpers;
RUN;
ODS HTML CLOSE;

this puts the table in the body of the email. But I cant find anything online which puts the dataset in an excel as an attachment without referencing a "C:\filepath" anywhere.

any help? something tells me I will be able to do a slight modification on the above code that will work but not sure what it is.

thank you in advanced.

---

Can you describe why you "cannot accesses files directly from file paths"? It might help to show some code and messages from the loq when attempting to do so. Perhaps it is a specific location issue.

Can you create libraries anywhere?

[CharlesFowler72]

essentially its because it is blocked by the company I work for. So for example If I were trying to create a PDF (which ive tried before) using the code

ods pdf file="c:\temp\Alfred.pdf";
 proc print data=D_Jumpers;
 title "D Jumpers";
 run;
 ods pdf close;
 title;

then the error would be "ERROR: Insufficient authorization to access /grasp/sas92/config/sascompute/Lev1/SASApp/c:\temp\Alfred.pdf.". I've spoken to the IT department and have been told it cannot be done.

yeah we have plenty of library space to save the output data set.

[Tom]

---

@CharlesFowler72 wrote:

essentially its because it is blocked by the company I work for. So for example If I were trying to create a PDF (which ive tried before) using the code

ods pdf file="c:\temp\Alfred.pdf";
 proc print data=D_Jumpers;
 title "D Jumpers";
 run;
 ods pdf close;
 title;

then the error would be "ERROR: Insufficient authorization to access /grasp/sas92/config/sascompute/Lev1/SASApp/c:\temp\Alfred.pdf.". I've spoken to the IT department and have been told it cannot be done.

yeah we have plenty of library space to save the output data set.

---

Your SAS code is running on Unix.  You cannot use Windows syntax to reference files when running on Unix.  You could create a shared network location that could be access by both the Unix server and your  Windows machine(s).  But the syntax for the path will most likely look different.  /grasp/data/temp/Alfred.pdf vs \\grasp_server\data\temp\Alfred.pdf 

[CharlesFowler72]

yes that sounds right. It has been explained to me in the past, a while back now. I work for a pretty big company and trying to change the system is essentially not an option. I need to just try and work round these problems and find alternative ways of doing things.

So this is my problem in trying to send a dataset as an excel attachment. All examples I find online use filepaths which just isn't an option for me.

[Kurt_Bremser]

How did you create the Excel in the first place?

If you use filename excel or ods excel, the resulting file will aready be stored on the server for filename email to pick it up.

[CharlesFowler72]

I haven't created it. Its just a temp data step at the moment "D_Jumpers". Am I just missing something really simple?

[Kurt_Bremser]

---

@CharlesFowler72 wrote:

I haven't created it. Its just a temp data step at the moment "D_Jumpers". Am I just missing something really simple?

---

It can't have appeared out of thin air (unless you're Harry Potter, of course). So I have to ask again: how was it created, and how did it end up on your C: drive?

[CharlesFowler72]

At the moment there is no excel file. There is just a dataset in my work library. I need that to be an excel file attached to an email with the problem that I don't have access to a drive to save the excel file down. 🙂 It could be an impossible task.   

[Tom]

---

@CharlesFowler72 wrote:

yes that sounds right. It has been explained to me in the past, a while back now. I work for a pretty big company and trying to change the system is essentially not an option. I need to just try and work round these problems and find alternative ways of doing things.

So this is my problem in trying to send a dataset as an excel attachment. All examples I find online use filepaths which just isn't an option for me.

---

You you just trying to find a path on your Unix box where you can create a file that you want to attach to an email?

Why just just write the file into the WORK directory that SAS is using?

%let path=%sysfunc(pathname(work));

[CharlesFowler72]

that would work. So then what code do I need to use to send the dataset in the work directory as an excel file attachment?

[Tom]

It seems pretty clear in the documentation.  Or here is an old article about it.

http://www2.sas.com/proceedings/forum2008/038-2008.pdf

So you make an XLSX file some how.

%let path=%sysfunc(pathname(work));

* Make the EXCEL file ;
libname out xlsx "&path/myexcel.xlsx";
data out.report;
   set sashelp.class;
run;

Then when you are sending the email you use the ATTACH= option tell it to attach that file.

FILENAME MailBox EMAIL ATTACH="&path/myexcel.xlsx";

[CharlesFowler72]

When I run the Libname line I get an error "ERROR: The XLSX engine cannot be found."

[andreas_lds]

Which SAS-version are you using? Executing

%put &=SYSVLONG;

prints the version number to the log.

[CharlesFowler72]

im using SAS Enterprise Guide 4.3