SAS 9.1 Companion For Unix Enivronments
Requirements for Variable Names
An environment variable can also be used as a fileref to refer to DISK files. The variable name must be in all uppercase characters , and the variable value must be the full pathname of the external file; that is, the filename must begin with a slash.
| Note | If a variable and a fileref have the same name but refer to different files, SAS uses the fileref. For example, the %INCLUDE statement below refers to file /users/ myid/this_one . |
filename ABC '/users/myid/this_one'; x setenv ABC /users/myid/that_one; %include ABC;
Reading a Data File
Suppose that you want to read the data file /users/myid/educ.dat , but you want to refer to it with the INED environment variable. You can define the variable at two times:
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before you invoke SAS. See "Defining Environment Variables in UNIX Environments" on page 21. For example, in the Korn shell, you use
export INED=/users/myid/educ.dat
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after you invoke SAS by using the X statement (see "Executing Operating System Commands from Your SAS Session" on page 13) and the SAS setenv command:
x setenv INED /users/myid/educ.dat;
After INED is associated with the file /users/myid/educ.dat , you can use INED as a fileref to refer to the file in the INFILE statement:
infile ined;
Writing to an External File
The same method applies if you want to write to an external file. For example, you can define OUTFILE before you invoke SAS:
OUTFILE=/users/myid/scores.dat export OUTFILE
Then, use the environment variable name as a fileref to refer to the file:
file outfile;