Date:         Thu, 25 Jan 2007 13:56:55 -0800
Reply-To:     "StephenTGallagher@gmail.com" <StephenTGallagher@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         "StephenTGallagher@gmail.com" <StephenTGallagher@GMAIL.COM>
Organization: http://groups.google.com
Subject:      Re: loop through all files in dir for inclusion in macro
Comments: To: sas-l@uga.edu
In-Reply-To:  <51sjtnF1m5nb6U1@mid.individual.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

On Jan 25, 3:55 pm, "Richard A. DeVenezia" <rdevene...@wildblue.net>
wrote:
> StephenTGallag...@gmail.com wrote:
> > I assume this is a common question, but excuse my foolishness for not
> > being able to find an answer on the list or online. Perhaps my search
> > criteria are wrong.
>
> > I have a directory with ten (abitrary number...could be hundreds) of
> > files, whose naming convention is not consistent, but, more or less,
> > extension is .txt or .csv.
>
> > I have a macro to, for example, import all of these files. Currently I
> > am hardcoding the filenames. I am sure this is a tremendous waste of
> > time.
>
> > I have come across code that will return every filename within a
> > directory on the sas site. I am including it below for reference, but
> > for the rest of my question please skip from ****code begins**** toWhile the dopen way works, it can be tedious and does not allow for direct
> filtering via a wildcard specification.
>
> A very common method is to get a list of file from a directory listing and
> dispatching what to do with the data from that.  If all the data files have
> a common format and are to be read into a single SAS table, or appended to a
> single SAS table, there are other strategies.
>
> case 1.
> all files same structure.
>
> * care about keeping the filename the data came from;
> data newdata;
>   length filename $200;
>   infile 'c:\mydata\thisweek\*.txt' filename=datafile;
>   filename = datafile;
>   input x y z a b c;
> run;
>
> * dont care;
> data newdatavague;
>   infile 'c:\mydata\thisweek\*.txt' ;
>   input x y z a b c;
> run;
>
> case2.
> all files processed independently
>
> %macro consume(file=);
>   %put file=&file;
> %mend;
>
> %let path = c:\temp;
> %let action = consume;
>
> filename dirlist pipe "dir /b &path.\*.txt";
> data _null_;
>   length command $200;
>   infile dirlist _infile_=filename;
>   input;
>   command = cats( '%', "&action(file=&path.\", filename, ')');
>   put command=;
>   call execute ('%nrstr(' || trim(command) || ')');
> run;
>
> -- Richard A. DeVeneziahttp://www.devenezia.com/

oh, this is very helpful, thanks.

i will attempt to implement and post back with any clarifications i
might need.

thank you!

--sg