but this statement: timestr=scan(filename,-2,'._');    for this value: filename='01-01_this_is_the_xyz_mkt_2015.09.30_04.01.37.log' ;   give this output:  37     ... View more

never mind, used filename and data step and it worked,,, ... View more

PROC IMPORT is not getting full "filename" is there a way to define length in PROC IMPORT,      ... View more

Thanks Reeza and Ballardw,    My code are in macro only :), just was trying to show you scenario yes i am concatenating it, not merging    But anyways find below solution,        /*sort all datasets*/   %do i=1 %to _n_iterate.; (where n_iterate is total number of files that i have defined it earlier)    proc sort data=test&i.; /*have datasets from test1 to test9*/    by date; run;   %end;   /*concatenating them */   data merge_all;   set %do k=1 %to &n_iterate.; work.test&k. %end;;    by date; run;   /*get distinct code*/   proc sql;    create table distinct_date as select distinct date from merge_all; run;     ... View more

thank you Tom... ... View more

Thank you so much Tom and other for your inputs, For now i what i did is after creating datasets with distinct date, i created one single dataset using "data" and "set" statement which has all distinct dates from all different datasets and then used proc SQL to create macro variable which link to distinct date, separated by ', it worked fine, But i wanted to send email to team mentioning which particular text file has what distinct date data, but that's fine, looks little difficult for me , will see later if i can do it, Thank you all again ... View more

this is the scenario; -> i receive text files, may be one or more with same variable and format, i will need one variable/field for my process which is "date" which come in       format like 20150721. different file has different date data as i mentioned above     text_file1.txt has 2 distinct date (20150714, 20150713) data     text_file2.txt has 4 distinct date (20150712, 20150711, 20150710, 20150709) data -> i read them in and create SAS datasets like text_file1/textfile_2/.........text_file_5 -> i create datasets like data1/data2/....data5 with distinct date date (so if 5 text files, 5 sas datasets (read in), 5 datasets (with distinct date) now lets say i receive 5 text files; -> i read them in and have 5 datasets text_file1 text_file2 text_file3 text_file4 text_file5 -> i created another 5 datasets (from text_file&i.) (with one variable "b_date" with distinct date) data1     ("b_date" variable has 2 distinct date 20150714, 20150713) data2     ("b_date" variable has 4 distinct date 20150712, 20150711, 20150710, 20150709) data3     ("b_date" variable has 1 distinct date 20150708) data4     ("b_date" variable has 1 distinct date 20150707) data5     ("b_date" variable has 3 distinct date 20150706, 20150705, 20150704) NOW, TOMORROW I MIGHT RECEIVE ONLY 2 TEXT FILES AND NOT 5 AND EVEN MAY BE WITH SAME DATE DATA So this could be the message for team, Hi Team, text_file1 has 2 distinct date 20150714, 20150713 text_file2 has 4 distinct date 20150712, 20150711, 20150710, 20150709 text_file3 has 1 distinct date 20150708 text_file4 has 1 distinct date 20150707 text_file5 has 3 distinct date 20150706, 20150705, 20150704 ... View more

Thank you Madhu but here for me two things are uncertain day to day, number of datasets (for files) are not fixed and number of distinct date in each file is not fixed, so in this case, i am not sure how we can writ below statement and loop everything, proc sql; select distinct b_date into : file1Dates separated by ',' from File1; select distinct b_date into : file2Dates separated by ',' from File2; select distinct b_date into : file3Dates separated by ',' from File3; quit; ... View more

i am importing text files and finding distinct date from file, some file may have 2 distinct dates data and some file may have 5 distinct date data. so here i have file name macro and related distinct date macro ready but don't know the final step to include in message, so basically i will need to link file name macro and related distinct date macro,        put text_file1.txt has 20150714, 20150713 date data";        put text_file2.txt has 20150712 date data";        put text_file3.txt has 20150711, 20150710, 20150709 date data"; ... View more