I have been using SAS for number of years, so I thought I have encountered enough cases for problem solving to cover the routine analysis work. This time I was trying to read some large SAS files and the SAS9.4 wouldn’t take it. I add the folder to the SAS library, but the SAS file in that folder doesn’t show up. Then I realized the SAS file name contains spaces and starts with numbers which violate the rules for SAS name. One of my colleague mentioned because he can view and open the SAS file through SAS enterprise guide, he think the file is fine. So I was wondering why SAS9.4 can’t open/view the SAS file but SAS enterprise guide can. It turns out SAS enterprise guide runs the options statements at the backend so it can take noncompatible filename and variable name.
OPTIONS VALIDVARNAME = ANY;
/* This option allows SAS9.4 to read variable names that contains space. The default is V7. */
/* V7 rules for SAS variable name:
- up to 32 char
- first char must begin with a letter or the underscore
- trailing blanks are ignored
- cannot contain blanks or special characters */
OPTIONS VALIDMEMNAME = EXTEND;
/* This allows SAS9.4 to view data set with name contains blanks and some special characters. The default is COMPATIBLE. */Once you run the options of VALIDVARNAME and VALIDMENNAME as shown above in SAS9.4. The SAS dataset will show up in the explorer window and you can click to see the column information. You still need to change the SAS dataset name for the data step to run properly.