The concept of current working directory in SAS is not as important as it sounds. Most SAS users point to file reference (fileref) and library reference (libname, a “namespace”-like mechanism to access files ), which are much convenient in large project with multiple folders.

Sometimes I push files to the current folder in relatively small task because I don’t want to

• jump to C:\Users\jhu\appdata\Local\Temp\SAS\Temporary Files_TD2820_like folder to get the temporary datasets (in WORK library)
• hard code a folder to receive ODS outputs.

The demo codes(a SAS system autocall macro %xlog used):

/display current directory in LOG window/
%xlog(cd);

/*change current working directory */
x “cd a:\test”;

/display current directory in LOG window/
%xlog(cd);

/*output a dataset in current directory */
data “iris”;
set sashelp.iris;
run;

/*output a pdf file in current directory */
ods pdf file=”iris.pdf”;
proc print data=”iris”;
run;
ods pdf close;

/*show files in current directory */
%xlog(dir);

And the LOG window may like:

Path
—-
C:\Users\jhu

Path
—-
A:\test

    Directory: A:test
Mode        LastWriteTime   Length Name
—-        ————-   —— —-
-a— 10/8/2012  12:49 PM   113665 iris.pdf
-a— 10/8/2012  12:49 PM    13312 iris.sas7bdat

NOTES:

• You can get autocall macro %xlog in (if SAS 9.3 in Windows 7)

C:\Program Files\SASHome\SASFoundation\9.3<span style=“color: #ff0000;“>core\sasmacro

An equivalent macro %xlst generates the shell command outputs to LIST window.

• If prefer Windows Powershell, a similar macro can be used (put it to autocall if needed):

%macro pslog(cmd);
option nonotes;
filename pslogcmd pipe “powershell &cmd”;
data null;
file log;
infile pslogcmd;
input;
put INFILE;
run;
option notes;
%mend pslog;

Test the following commands:

%pslog(gl);
%pslog(get-location);
%pslog(get-host)