How to set the "charmultiplier" option for a PATH type caslib for loading SAS datasets to CAS?

[EyalGonen]

Hi experts,

Using SAS Viya 3.5 and trying to load a SAS dataset created in encoding WHEBREW and copied as-is (via WinSCP) to the SAS Viya server SPRE compute machine. If I use this code below then the load works fine to CAS and I can see the Hebrew text correctly in Viya:

/* connect to CAS */
cas; 

/* create a caslib pointing to the sas7bdat file location */
caslib myCaslib datasource=(srctype="path") path="/tmp/sas94/data"; 

/* this sample uploads using a temporary caslib pointing to the sas7bdat file location */
/* the charmultiplier=2 is for Hebrew */
proc casutil; 
	load casdata="score.sas7bdat" incaslib="myCaslib" outcaslib="casuser" casout="score" 
	promote 
	importoptions=(filetype="basesas" charmultiplier=2);
run;quit;

 I would like to achieve the same by loading the dataset directly from the "Manage Data" UI in SAS Viya but that does not work. I get an error that the dataset cannot be transcoded. I cannot find a way to set the "charmultiplier=2" option in the UI when I define a new CASLIB of type "path". I also cannot find a way to set the "charmultiplier=2" in the CASLIB statement when I define it in code. Anyone has any idea about it?

Thanks

[sbxkoenk]

---

@EyalGonen wrote:

I also cannot find a way to set the "charmultiplier=2" in the CASLIB statement when I define it in code. Anyone has any idea about it?

You need (I think) the

     CVPMULTIPLIER=multiplier

on the LIBNAME statement.

LIBNAME MyCAS cas caslib=ABCXYZ cvpmultiplier=2.5; /* or 2 in your case */

But I would first make sure you have everything correctly represented on a V9 library in SAS VIYA 3.5 (that's a directory path and *.sas7bdat file on your Linux / UNIX file system).
If you do not specify any engine on the LIBNAME statement , SAS defaults to the V9 engine.
Then upload in-memory (to CAS). CAS has much more data types than *.sas7bdat and internal conversions may be done in order to save space for example. These conversions should happen automatically.

Koen

[sbxkoenk]

Some more info (on top of previous reply) :

SAS® 9.4 and SAS® Viya® 3.5 Programming Documentation | SAS 9.4 / Viya 3.5
Migrating to UTF-8
Migrating Data to UTF-8 for SAS® Viya® 3.5
https://go.documentation.sas.com/doc/en/pgmsascdc/9.4_3.5/viyadatamig/titlepage.htm

Koen

[EyalGonen]

Hi @sbxkoenk 

I want to load the "sas7bdat" file from the Viya UI in the so called "Manage Data" user interface. I want to right click on the "sas7bdat" file and select to Load it to CAS. This does not work for me due to transcoding errors. My question is how to set the "charmultiplier" option on the CASLIB itself (the CASLIB of type PATH that points to the "sas7bdat" files). Is this even possible?

[BrunoMueller]

Have a look here, https://go.documentation.sas.com/doc/en/pgmsascdc/9.4_3.5/casref/p0pkl5ltcloc5wn19ly0hohe4s9e.htm#n0... according to the doc it is possible to define the CHARMULTIPLIER in the CASLIB statement.

As an alternative: in the Data Explorer (Manage Data) go to the Data Sources tab, display all the files for the given caslib, use the right mouse button on a sas7bdat file and choose "Add to Import". You then go to the Import tab, for a .sas7bdat file you can specify the "Character multiplier"

[EyalGonen]

Hi @BrunoMueller 

I am aware of the import option but I want to avoid it. I want to be able to right click on a "sas7bdat" file and select "Load" and it will automatically apply the "charmultiplier=2" to the load action. I need to test your suggestion about adding the charmultiplier to the caslib definition - I guess this should do what I want, right?

Do you know if it is possible to add the "charmultiplier" option to the CASLIB definition in the UI? I was unable to find any such option that worked...

Eyal

[EyalGonen]

Hi @BrunoMueller 

I tried your suggestion and it seems like the CASLIB statement does not allow the "charmultiplier" option:

:

[BrunoMueller · Accepted solution]

I did some testing as well and encountered the same error messages. 

I did read through some more doc and found this: https://go.documentation.sas.com/doc/en/pgmsascdc/9.4_3.5/casref/p0j7s6opsm8bbdn1edni5ngqdjyu.htm

It says:

Note: You can specify data connector options for all data connectors except SAS Data Connector to PC Files or SAS Data Connector to SAS Data Sets. For these you would instead use IMPORTOPTIONS= to read data and EXPORTOPTIONS= to save data.

So this means we can not specify the option while creating a caslib, but need to use it with every load operation.

Maybe it is best to convert the SAS data sets to UTF8 and then copy them to the physical location of the caslib.

[EyalGonen]

I would suggest to add a new feature to allow specifying the CHARMULTIPLIER option for Base SAS datasets connector in CASLIB. I think it would be very useful.

Thanks all for the help!