This message is intended for any SSCC member who uses SAS on UNIX and stores SAS data sets. Everyone else can safely ignore this message.
Last January we announced in SSCC News that SSCC's oldest UNIX computer, GUY, is being retired in September. We also announced that we will be removing SAS from GUY on August 5. Once SAS is removed from GUY, SSCC users with only SSRI, IRP, or AGE affiliations will need to run their SAS jobs on KITE, a Linux computer. KITE cannot read version 6 SAS data sets so these files need to be converted to version 8 by this date.
To make the transition from GUY to KITE smoother, SSCC staff have written a program that will find all your version 6 SAS data sets (including those in /aux or project directories) and convert them to version 8 for you. The program also generates a log and listing file that you should check to verify that the conversion was successful (details provided below). We will begin running this conversion program on GUY on May 20th. The program will take several days to run and it will be best to avoid using GUY while this program is running as performance will be slower than normal.
All version 6 SAS data sets will be converted to a version 8 SAS data set and
written to the same directory where the version 6 data set resided. If the version
6 SAS data was compressed, the version 8 SAS data set will be compressed as
well. The new version 8 file will have the same permissions as the version 6
data set. The new version 8 file will also have the same name as before but
will have a .sas7bdat extension rather than .ssd04. The old SAS data set will
get moved to a temporary location before the conversion and a symbolic link
to the file will be placed in the original directory. (A symbolic link is a
mechanism for assigning different names to the same file and in this case provides
an easy way to access the file
from its original location. In other words, the version 6 file resides in a
totally different file system but you can get to it by referring to its symbolic
link name in the file's original directory.) We plan to archive and then remove
these version 6 files (and their links) on August 5, the same day we remove
SAS from GUY.
There will be a .log and .lst file created for each SAS data set converted.
These files will be placed in the same temporary
location as your version 6 SAS data set and a symbolic link to these files will
also be placed in your original directory. These files contain the results from
the PROC COPY used to convert the SAS 6 data set and the results from PROC COMPARE
used to compare compare the tables of the version 6 SAS data set with the
tables of the version 8 SAS data set to ensure that the two are identical.
We will notify you when the conversion process is finished and provide you with some UNIX commands (find and grep) that will make it easy for you to quickly check the SAS .log and .lst files for any problems.
Below is an illustration of what a directory looks like before and after the conversion program runs:
/home/m/mcdermot/mysasfiles> ls
-l
-rw-r--r-- 1 mcdermot users 32768 Feb 13 1998 adxparm.ssd04
-rw-r--r-- 1 mcdermot users 16384 Feb 12 1998 agents.ssd04
-rw-r--r-- 1 mcdermot users 24576 Apr 8 1996 gpa.ssd04
-rw-r--r-- 1 mcdermot users 77475 Feb 11 1998 tally.ssd04.Z
-rw-r--r-- 1 mcdermot dpadmn 32768
Feb 13 1998 adxparm.sas7bdat
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root dpadmn 53 Apr 25 13:46 adxparm.ssd04@
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root dpadmn 55 Apr 25 13:46 adxparmCOPY.log@
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root dpadmn 55 Apr 25 13:46 adxparmCOPY.lst@
-rw-r--r-- 1 mcdermot dpadmn 16384 Apr 24 14:11 agents.sas7bdat
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root dpadmn 52 Apr 25 13:47 agents.ssd04@
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root dpadmn 54 Apr 25 13:47 agentsCOPY.log@
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root dpadmn 54 Apr 25 13:47 agentsCOPY.lst@
-rw-r--r-- 1 mcdermot dpadmn 24576 Apr 8 1996 gpa.sas7bdat
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root dpadmn 49 Apr 25 13:47 gpa.ssd04@
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root dpadmn 51 Apr 25 13:47 gpaCOPY.log@
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root dpadmn 51 Apr 25 13:47 gpaCOPY.lst@
-rw-r--r-- 1 mcdermot dpadmn 86839 Feb 11 1998 tally.sas7bdat.Z
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root dpadmn 53 Apr 25 13:47 tally.ssd04.Z@
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root dpadmn 53 Apr 25 13:47 tallyCOPY.log@
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root dpadmn 53 Apr 25 13:47 tallyCOPY.lst@
Note that symbolic links are indicated by the "@" at the end of the file name. Also, the initial character in each row indicates the file type and an "l" indicates that the file is a symbolic link.
2 libname read v6 "/ssd04files//home/m/mcdermot/mysasfiles";
NOTE: Libref READ was successfully assigned as follows:
Engine: V6
Physical Name: /ssd04files//home/m/mcdermot/mysasfiles
3 libname write v8 "/home/m/mcdermot/mysasfiles";
NOTE: Libref WRITE was successfully assigned as follows:
Engine: V8
Physical Name: /home/m/mcdermot/mysasfiles
4 proc copy in=read out=write memtype=data;
5 select tally;
NOTE: Copying READ.TALLY to WRITE.TALLY
(memtype=DATA).
NOTE: There were 6085 observations read from the data set READ.TALLY.
NOTE: The data set WRITE.TALLY has 6085 observations and 8 variables.
NOTE: PROCEDURE COPY used:
6 proc compare base=read.tally compare=write.tally
7 novalues briefsummary;
8 run;
NOTE: There were 6085 observations read from the data set READ.TALLY.
NOTE: There were 6085 observations read from the data set WRITE.TALLY.
NOTE: The PROCEDURE COMPARE printed page 1.
NOTE: PROCEDURE COMPARE used:
The COMPARE Procedure
Comparison of READ.TALLY with WRITE.TALLY
(Method=EXACT)
NOTE: No unequal values were found.
All values compared are exactly equal.
If you have any questions or concerns about this process, please don't hesitate to contact the consultant.
Nancy McDermott, Director
Social Science Computing Cooperative
University of Wisconsin - Madison
1180 Observatory Drive
Madison, WI 53706
(608) 262-3206
mcdermot@ssc.wisc.edu
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