First – the macro:

/*-------------------------------------------------------------------*\
| directory_scan macro
| MSP 2010-08
|
| this macro will open the directory specified and extract a full
| path and data set name to use for future PROC IMPORTS
|
| the default behavior is to scan for excel files and create a dataset
| called excellist. however, this can be modified using the optional
| keyword parameters defined below.
\*-------------------------------------------------------------------*/

%macro directory_scan(
  /* MANDATORY POSITIONAL PARAMETERS */
  path,              /* the path that you wish to scan */
  /* OPTIONAL KEYWORD PARAMETERS */
  /* EVERYTHING WILL DEFAULT TO EXCEL UNLESS SPECIFIED */
  dsn=excelList,     /* the dataset name to store the information */
  ext=.xls           /* optional parameter, to be used
                        if the extension isn't xls */
  );
data &dsn.(keep= dsName fullPath);
  rc = filename('mydir',&path.);
  dirid=dopen('mydir');
  memcount=dnum(dirid);
  extension = prxparse("|&ext.|");
  do i = 1 to memcount;
    /*-------------------------------------*\
    | for each file in the directory,
    | create a sas dataset name that
    | depends on the filename. The SAS
    | dataset is truncated to 27 characters
    | so that other datasets can be created
    | named after the ones created here.
    \*-------------------------------------*/
    dsName = dread(dirid,i);
    fullPath = &path. || dsName;
    extPos = prxmatch(extension,dsName);
    if extPos > 0 then do;
      dsName = translate(dsName,'_',' ','_','-','_','.','_','&');
      dsName = substr(dsName,1,extPos-1);
      if length(dsName) > 27 then dsName = substr(dsName,1,27);
      output;
    end;
  end;
run;
%mend;

The end result is a dataset that contains a dataset name (based on the filename) and the absolute path to each file in a specified directory.

This makes for a nice combination with the CALL EXECUTE statement – you can create a bunch of different SAS datasets with very little effort.

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