I am trying to get a list of files in a specified directory, but I have noticed that when using the command prompt syntax that I cannot use directories that contain a space. Does anyone know of a way to get my code to work with spaces? The code should return about 300 files, but I'm getting 0.
%let dir=S:\cdm\Programming\445\106\Data Cleaning\MDR\MDR Standard Checks\Part B\AE;
%let ext=xlsx;
filename EXTlist pipe "dir /b /s &dir.\*.&ext.";
data directory;
infile EXTlist truncover;
input directory $200.;
run;
Better in my opinion to leave the macro variable unquoted, and quote when used.
%let dir=S:\cdm\Programming\445\106\Data Cleaning\MDR\MDR Standard Checks\Part B\AE;
%let ext=xlsx;
filename EXTlist pipe "dir /b /s ""&dir.\*.&ext"" ";
data directory;
infile EXTlist truncover;
input directory $200.;
run;
My understanding is you need quotes around paths that include spaces. How about this?
%let dir=%str(%')S:\cdm\Programming\445\106\Data Cleaning\MDR\MDR Standard Checks\Part B\AE;
%let ext=xlsx%str(%');
Better in my opinion to leave the macro variable unquoted, and quote when used.
%let dir=S:\cdm\Programming\445\106\Data Cleaning\MDR\MDR Standard Checks\Part B\AE;
%let ext=xlsx;
filename EXTlist pipe "dir /b /s ""&dir.\*.&ext"" ";
data directory;
infile EXTlist truncover;
input directory $200.;
run;
I knew it was some kind of quoting issue, but I couldn't figure out how many quotes to use, and if they should be single or double. This method did the trick. Thanks!
Windows filenames can contain ampersands. You will want to be sure SAS does not try to use the & as a resolution directive.
Example:
Wrap path in %NRSTR for explicit assignment. Use %SUPERQ to resolve the symbol only.
%let path = %nrstr(c:\temp\tom&jerry videos); filename dir pipe "dir /b /s ""%superq(path)"""; data _null_; infile dir; input; put _infile_; run;
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