SAS, create filename from dataset column

Question

is it possible to create a filename from a value stored in a dataset column? What i'm after is something like:

/* 
   other code here, assume work.users looks like 
   user_id
   ImageData
 */

data _null_;
   set work.users;

   file_name=cat('/home/me/', trim(user_id), '.jpg');

   file file_name NOPRINT;

   put ImageData;
run;

at the moment i'm trying to do it with macros but i'm not having any luck.

Answer 1

To do this, you'll need to create the file_name variable first, and then you can use the filevar= option in a new data step to dynamically write to the files.

So, first create file_name in work.users:

data work.users;
  length file_name $255;
  file_name=cats('/home/me',user_id,'.jpg');
run;

Then do what you're trying to do using the filevar= option:

data _null_;
  set work.users;
  file dummy filevar=file_name noprint;
  put ImageData;
run;

Note that dummy is just a placeholder when using the filevar= method.

Answer 2

If you want to do this with macros:

data _null_;
  set work.users;
  call symput('filename', cats('/home/me/', user_id, '.jpg'));
run;

data _null_;
  set work.users;
  file "&filename." noprint;
  put imagedata;
run;

However, this assumes there is only one observation in work.users, which I'm guessing is not true. If you want to output a file for each observation, roll it into a macro:

%macro writefile(n);
%do i = 1 %to &n;

data _null_;
    i = &i;
    set users point=i;
    call symput('filename', cats('c:\temp\', user_id, '.txt'));
    stop;
run;

data _null_;
    i = &i;
    set users point=i;
    file "&filename." noprint;
    put imagedata;
    stop;
run;

%end;
%mend;

Here, the argument &n is the number of observations in your dataset. You could obtain it programmatically, but it's easier for current purposes just to pass it manually to the macro.