Thank you very much for the help -- the second suggestion worked perfectly. People are used to writing filename statements one way, and I wasn't sure how hard it'd be to get them to do things differently.

If I had to do something like parse the log or the SAS job itself, then I would have bit the bullet and made them change. :)

Brian

On Mon, 3 Jan 2011 17:00:57 -0600, Joe Matise <snoopy369@GMAIL.COM> wrote:

>The LENGTH option is one possibility - it simply gives you the actual length >of the input line. It will NOT directly equal the LRECL value, however, >unless you use PAD; if you don't use PAD, it will give you the actual length >of each input line, which may or may not work for you. It's equivalent to > >input @; >lengthvar = length(_INFILE_); > >from what I recall. But it's only available after read-in, which means you >need to do a quick run through the file first (may be feasible, if it's not >too big, and has the advantage of getting the 'real' LRECL) before creating >your layout. If you are willing to use PAD, then you could do it by only >reading in one line; it still seems more complicated than just using a macro >variable, but it wouldn't be terribly onerous. > > filename fs ftp "'SAMPLE.LOC'" > binary host="srvr" > user=user > pass=pass > lrecl=200 debug ; > >data _NULL_; >infile fs pad length=lenvar; >call symput('lrecl',lenvar); >stop; >run; > >*now you have &LRECL available, without having the user define it that way; > >DATA FFSheet_01_FPPS_Sort ; > > INFILE fs ; > INPUT > @001 Blob $EBCDIC100. > @ ; > >RUN ; > >I don't know of a way to directly get to the LRECL value itself (without >specifying it in a macro variable); the only things I can think of are far >more complicated than telling your users to use macro variables (ie, reading >in your .SAS program itself and parsing it, or reading the log and parsing >that). > >-Joe > >On Mon, Jan 3, 2011 at 4:45 PM, Brian Trautman <btrautman84@gmail.com>wrote: > >> This SAS job processes certain kinds of layout files DB2 produces and makes >> a SAS layout that can work with the unloaded dataset. However, the DB2 >> layout files don't include the length of VARCHAR fields. Most of the time >> this can be derived simply based on wherever the next field starts, but >> this >> doesn't work if the VARCHAR field is the last field in the DB2 unload. In >> those cases, the VARCHAR field is best handled as ending wherever the file >> does. >> >> I won't be the only one using this SAS job, and most of our users wouldn't >> be used to specifying the lrecl in the macro variable, rather than the >> filename statement. That's why I was hoping to, when a varchar was the >> last >> field in an output file, have logic to handle this. >> >> Thank you! >> >> Brian >> >> On Mon, 3 Jan 2011 13:32:47 -0600, Joe Matise <snoopy369@GMAIL.COM> wrote: >> >> >Brian, >> >What's the end goal here? If it's simply to 'do things based on the >> >[provided] LRECL', then %let (or call the macro with the LRECL as a >> >parameter) seems perfectly reasonable. I assume you must have a reason >> for >> >not wanting to do it that way - what is it? Do you want to automatically >> >determine the LRECL? >> > >> >Thanks, >> > >> >Joe >> > >> >On Mon, Jan 3, 2011 at 1:13 PM, Brian Trautman <btrautman84@gmail.com >> >wrote: >> > >> >> I have the following SAS program -- >> >> >> >> filename fs ftp "'SAMPLE.LOC'" >> >> binary host="srvr" >> >> user=user >> >> pass=pass >> >> lrecl=200 >> >> debug ; >> >> >> >> DATA FFSheet_01_FPPS_Sort ; >> >> >> >> INFILE fs ; >> >> INPUT >> >> @001 Blob $EBCDIC100. >> >> @ ; >> >> >> >> RUN ; >> >> >> >> I'd like to be able to write a macro that detects the lrecl used in my >> >> filename statement, and does things based on it. I know one way to do >> it >> >> would be to simply do something like this -- >> >> >> >> %let llen = 200; >> >> >> >> filename fs ftp "'SAMPLE.LOC'" >> >> binary host="srvr" >> >> user=user >> >> pass=pass >> >> lrecl=&llen >> >> debug ; >> >> >> >> However, I'd like to avoid this solution if at all possible. Are there >> any >> >> other options? >> >> >>