SAS vs. WINDOWS (WIN) file names
Keep straight which is which. How do you point to a file in SAS and how do you point to a file in WIN?
Note that the way you refer to a file in SAS is:
libref.fileref but this is not the way the WIN sees it.
WIN thinks of files as:
/pathname/filename.extension
In the example above, the SAS data set:
LIBRARY.SURVEY1
is saved on disk with the "real" name:
/bios524/classlib/survey1.sd7
Think of it as LIBRARY being a "nickname" for path to the directory:
/bios524/classlib/
the SAS data set name is the same as the WIN file name:
survey1
the UNIX extension tells SAS that this is a SAS data set (there are other kinds of SAS files):
.sd7
It is possible to change the name of the data set using WIN
from, say, survey1.sd7 to newname.sasdata
Do not do this. The new file, newname.sasdata is not readable by SAS.
Rule: Use SAS to perform data management, not your operating system.