mf_getuniquefileref.sas File Reference

Assigns and returns an unused fileref. More...

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Detailed Description

Using the native approach for assigning filerefs fails as some procedures (such as proc http) do not recognise the temporary names (starting with a hash), returning a message such as:

‍ERROR 22-322: Expecting a name.

This macro works by attempting a random fileref (with a prefix), seeing if it is already assigned, and if not - returning the fileref.

If your process can accept filerefs with the hash (#) prefix, then set prefix=0 to revert to the native approach - which is significantly faster when there are a lot of filerefs in a session.

Use as follows:

%let fileref1=%mf_getuniquefileref();
%let fileref2=%mf_getuniquefileref(prefix=0);
%put &fileref1 &fileref2;

which returns filerefs similar to:

‍_7432233 #LN00070

Parameters

[in]	prefix=	(_) first part of fileref. Remember that filerefs can only be 8 characters, so a 7 letter prefix would mean maxtries should be 10. if using zero (0) as the prefix, a native assignment is used.
[in]	maxtries=	(1000) the last part of the libref. Must be an integer.
[in]	lrecl=	(32767) Provide a default lrecl with which to initialise the generated fileref.

Version

9.2

Author

Allan Bowe

Definition in file mf_getuniquefileref.sas.