CODEWITHSUNDEEP
sas
aola
aola

Reputation: 87

fdelete in sas, delete files from a backup

I want to delete files from backup if there are more than three files.

   filename parent '/abc/cde';

if is less than three files in parent directory sas code does nothing. The name of sample file: ABC_1117_02MAY2016.txt - all have the same length.

if count()>3 then sas code returns all dates from substring: 02MAY2016, because I want to delete all files with dates less than the third largest.

data all_files;
 keep substr_date;
    did=dopen("parent");
    if dnum(did)>3 then do;
        do i=1 to dnum(did);
        wycinek_z_daty=substr(dread(did,i),10,9);
        output;
end;
end;

run;

I sort it

proc sort data=all_files;
by descending substr_date;
run;

It is what I don't want to delete

data backup;
set all_files(obs=3);
run;

I create a table with all what I want to delete. 

proc sql;
create table delete as
select*from all_files except select*from backup;
quit;

How I can remove these files that I have in 'delete' table? I know I supposed to use fdelete funtion

%macro test;
%do i=1 %to &sqlobs;
fdelete('/abc/cde/ABC_1117_&something. Can I use macro variable for i? because only date in name is changing?)
%end;
%mend;

Thanks for help, aola

Upvotes: 0

Views: 903

Answers (1)

Joe
Joe

Reputation: 63424

Once you have the delete table, I would write the macro like so:

%macro delete_file(file=);
  fdelete("&file.");
%mend;

Then you can call it:

proc sql;
  select cats('%delete_file(file=abc_1117_',substr_date,')')
    into :dellist separated by ' '
    from delete;
quit;

&dellist.;

I would probably just save the whole filename in delete dataset and then use that rather than hardcoding abc_1117_, but that's your call.

Upvotes: 0

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