Section 7.9 - Miscellaneous SAS Functions


Apply the VLABEL function to place a variable label into the title of a 
procedure:

DATA test;
  ATTRIB x label ='Variable X!';
  DO x=1 to 10;
   OUTPUT;
  END;
run;

DATA _null_; SET test; CALL SYMPUT('LabelTitle',vlabel(x));
RUN;

PROC PRINT DATA=test;
TITLE "&LabelTitle";
RUN;




System Functions

Delete a file

DATA _null_;
CALL SYSTEM("del c:\sas\tmp.txt");
RUN;


%SYSFUNC commands

FDELETE

filename t 'c:\allergy\allergy.xls';

%put %sysfunc(FDELETE(t));

will return 0 if successful.



The %sysfunc placed within a macro (see Chapter 9) to print state names to 
the LOG file:

%MACRO st;

%DO j = 1 %to 56;
    %LET state = %SYSFUNC(fipname(&j));
%PUT &j &state;
%END;

%MEND st;

%st
;


PATHNAME: Find the pathname of a libname spec:

libname dat 'c:\sas\intro' ;

%let dr= %sysfunc(PATHNAME(dat));

%put &dr ;
 
prints

c:\sas\intro

in the Log window