Can I use wildcards in dataset names for PROC CONTENTS? - sas

On the SAS server we have a library that contains thousands of datasets. I want to catalog the contents of a subset of these, all of which have names that begin with "prov". Can I use a wildcard to specify this?
I tried:
PROC CONTENTS DATA=library.prov*;
RUN;
But that just produces a log with this error message:
ERROR: File LIBRARY.PROV.DATA does not exist.
I also tried library.prov%, and that gave the same error.
There are over 100 datasets that start with "prov" so I really don't want to have to do them one at a time. Any ideas?

Depending on what information you want that the CONTENTS procedure produces you could just use the DICTIONARY metadata views.
proc sql ;
create table want as
select *
from dictionary.columns
where libname = 'LIBREF'
and memname like 'PROV%'
;
quit;

Use a WHERE data set option.
proc contents data=sashelp._all_ noprint out=class(where=(memname like 'CLASS%'));
run;

When you specify the keyword _ALL_ in the PROC CONTENTS statement, the step displays a list of all the SAS files that are in the specified SAS library.
Example :
PROC CONTENTS DATA=libref._ALL_ NODS;
RUN;
But to open only the datasets that begin with prov you can use the SQL and add CONTAINS to WHERE e.g:
proc sql ;
create table mytables as
select *
from dictionary.tables
where libname = 'WORK'
order by memname ;
quit ;
Now just run:
PROC CONTENTS DATA mytables;
RUN;

I may be using a different version of SAS check if you have the library SASHELP if so try this based on my note in your comment on the previous response you may see that this works out for you:
proc sql outobs=100;
create table see as
select distinct libname,memname,crdate,modate from sashelp.vtable
where libname='LIBRARY' and memname like 'PROV%'
order by memname;
quit;

Related

SAS - Can I create a table of all table names within a library and then all variables within those tables?

I would like to create a new table with all tables contained within a library and the variables within each of those tables. I know I can use something like the below to get the table name but I cant find much on getting each variable. I have multiple libraries and each has potentially hundreds of tables. Any help really appreciated.
proc sql ;
create table mytables as
select *
from dictionary.tables
where libname IN ('WORK','SPDSWORK',etc)
order by memname ;
quit ;
Just use PROC CONTENTS with the special _ALL_ member name. Use the NOPRINT option to suppress the output and the OUT= option to name the dataset with the contents information.
proc contents data=mylib._all_ noprint out=contents;
run;
Use distionary.columns instead.
proc sql ;
create table mytables as
select *
from dictionary.columns
where libname IN ('SASHELP')
order by memname ;
quit ;

Proc contents looping through table names from a different data set

I am a newbie to SAS and I am trying to execute below code to obtain all the information for a particular library. However it fails in between due to data in a particular dataset. Is there any way to read dataset names from a different dataset and loop through them creating a different dataset specific to each datasetname from the list?
Proc contents data= testlib. _ALL_ out=x;
Run;
Instead I want something like this
Proc contents data in (work. Tbnames) out = x;
Run;
And read data from below data set.
Data tbnames(keep tablename) ;
Set WORK. tablenames;
Run;
Please help
St
Proc contents data = work.Tbnames out = x;
Run;
Use Proc COPY to copy data sets from one library to another.
libname testlib '<os-path-to-folder>';
proc copy in=testlib out=work memtype=DATA;
run;
Read the data from dictionary.table instead.
This assumes that you have the list of tables in a data set called tableNames and it has a variable called tName, which is the variable name. Note that it is a case sensitive comparison so UPCASE() is used make it all upper case.
proc sql;
create table summary as
select *
from dictionary.table
where memname in (select upcase(tName) from tableNames);
quit;
Or look at PROC DATASETS which operates on a library, not a single data set.
proc datasets lib=myLib;
run;quit;

Jupyter notebook display SAS output word-wrapper

I have a table in sas format (.sas7bdat) and would like to output it in Jupyter notebook.
proc print data=dataBoxE.my_data (firstobs=2 obs=12);
run;
The output table is jammed together since it has 100+ columns. How should I setup the environment within my notebook?
Moreover, is there a way to save the log file instead of opening it right away in the output cell? Thanks.
In SAS you can change the location of where the log file is created using proc printto; Documentation here.
When using proc printto, don't forget to reset the location to the default system value at the end of your, Example:
proc printto log='c:\em\log1.log';
run;
/* Your code here */
proc printto;
run;
If you don't need the 100+ columns; then select only the ones you want using the VAR statement in proc print Documentation here :
proc print data=exprev;
var country price sale_type;
run;
If you want all the 100+; just export them to csv using proc export and view them in any spreadsheet reader to avoid crashing your browser. Documentation here.
proc export data=sashelp.class
outfile='c:\myfiles\Femalelist.csv'
dbms=csv
replace;
run;

proc sql outobs= triggers SAS warning

We currently use the %runquit macro function as detailed here (http://analytics.ncsu.edu/sesug/2010/CC07.Blanchette.pdf). The %runquit macro is shown below. It basically stops running any more SAS code when an error is encounterd, and can be used as a replacement for both the run and quit statements:
%macro runquit;
; run; quit;
%if &syserr %then %abort cancel;
%mend;
Because using the outobs statement in proc sql triggers a system error (even when the nowarn option is specified) it means we are unable to use the %runquit macro when we need to use the outobs= option.
The below example will generate the following warning message:
proc sql noprint outobs=3 /*nowarn*/;
create table tmp as
select age, count(*) as freq
from sashelp.class
group by 1
order by 2 desc
;
%runquit;
WARNING: Statement terminated early due to OUTOBS=3 option.
Thank you SAS for the completely unnecessary warning. The behaviour is obviously expected because I explicitly wrote code to ask for it. I don't see warnings given when we specify inobs= and outobs= on a set statement. Why does proc sql get the special treatment?
Is there any way to disable the warning issues by the outobs= option in proc sql? Alternatively, is there another way to limit the output rows from proc sql that will not generate an error?
Assuming you are okay with the full SQL statement executing, you can get around this with a data step view that contains the obs limitation.
proc sql noprint ;
create table tmp as
select age, count(*) as freq
from sashelp.class
group by 1
order by 2 desc
;
%runquit;
data tmp_fin/view=tmp_fin;
set tmp(obs=3);
%runquit;
Or make the SQL statement a view and use the data step to make the data set.
proc sql noprint ;
create view tmp_view as
select age
, count(*) as freq
from sashelp.class
group by 1
order by 2 desc
;
quit;
data tmp;
set tmp_view(obs=3) ;
run;
This might be one of your options considering I/O is not a huge constraint, here the reset outobs= option with nowarn does the trick but at IOs cost.
proc sql;
create table test as
select * from sashelp.class;
reset outobs=10 nowarn;
create table test1 as
select * from sashelp.class;
quit;

Deleting variable names containing specific string

I'm just starting to learn SAS and wanted to see if anyone knew of a way to delete certain variables from a dataset if they contained a certain word. I'm working with a dataset that contains a huge amount of variables (100+) with the word 'Label' in them and am looking to drop these. Unfortunately the word label comes at the end of the variable name, so I can't do a simple drop label:; Obviously I could individually list all the variables to drop, but I just wanted to see if anyone out there knew of a simpler way to accomplish this task. Thanks for reading and for any help you have to offer up.
Using a the vcolumn table and proc sql to create a macro variable a macro variable:
proc sql noprint;
select trim(compress(name))
into :drop_vars separated by ' '
from sashelp.vcolumn
where libname = upcase('lib1')
and
memname = upcase('table1')
and
upcase(name) like '%LABEL%'
;
quit;
%put &drop_vars.;
data table2;
set table1;
drop &drop_vars.;
run;
the proc sql will create a list of all the variables from table1 in library 'lib1' containing label anywhere in the name and put it into the macro variable called drop_vars. (upcase is used to reduce possibility of case causing an issue)
The data step then uses the drop statement and the drop_vars variable to drop all variables in the list.
Note: Make sure you check the output of the %put statement to ensure you do not drop variables you want to keep
What you need to do is come up with a dataset that contains the variable names, then create a macro variable containing those you want to drop. There are three (or more) options for the first part:
dictionary.columns
sashelp.vcolumn
proc contents output to a dataset
All three give the same result - a dataset of variable names (and other things), which you can then query.
So for example, using PROC SQL's SELECT INTO functionality to create a macro variable:
proc sql;
select name into :droplist separated by ' '
from dictionary.columns
where libname='SASHELP' and memname='CLASS'
and name like '%eigh%';
quit;
(replace eigh with Label for your needs; % is wildcard here)
and then you have a macro variable &droplist, which you can then use in a drop statement.
data want;
set sashelp.class;
drop &droplist;
run;