SAS: FTP an external file (flat file)

I had a lot of trouble with SAS' FTP access engine. It appeared to be randomly corrupting the data.  This worked though. I relied heavily on the indicated web page, and then converted it to a macro.


* ----------------------------------------------------- ;
*              M A C R O :  F T P F I L E
* ----------------------------------------------------- ;
*  FTP the hard way...but to overcome failure of the
*  FTP access engine, which corrupted the data.
*  Source: https://communities.sas.com/message/114111
*  Bill Qualls, 20150326
* ----------------------------------------------------- ;

%macro ftpfile(folder=&RAWDATA_FOLDER, file=, ftpcom=&RAWDATA_FOLDER/ftpcom.txt);

* file to which ftp commands will be written ;
filename ftpcom "&FTPCOM" lrecl=80;

data _null_;
file ftpcom;

* ftp ession user and password ;
put "user theuser thepassword";

* disable prompting cmd ;
put "prom no";

* enable binary transfer mode cmd ;
put "bin";

* go to local folder cmd ;
put "lcd &FOLDER";

* go to remote folder cmd ;
put "cd OurFolderOnFTPServer";

* send file cmd ;
put "send &file";

run;


* set up piping into ftp commands into ftp instruction ;
filename doftp pipe "ftp -n ftp.xxxxxxxx.com < &FTPCOM";


* enable ftp session and pass it the commands file ;
data _null_;
infile doftp;
input;
put _infile_;
run;

%mend ftpfile;

Linux: Zipping files in Linux

My co-worker Ken shared this with me.

Here is how I am zipping files:

First, navigate to the directory where the files are located. Then, 

zip –mT  abc  abc*

This creates the archive abc.zip, then adds to it all files in the current directory named like abc*, then tests the archive (the T option), then if test is OK, deletes the files (effectively moving the files to the zip archive (the –m option)).

SAS: FTP as SAS dataset as a SAS dataset

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Linux: uptime command

A scheduled process stopped running. I wondered if perhaps the server had been shut down. Turns out there is a Linux command to check that: uptime.

   [xcnb804@omhq1845 scripts]$ uptime
    08:51:35 up 27 days, 38 min,  4 users,  load average: 0.06, 0.10, 0.37
   [xcnb804@omhq1845 scripts]$

About the command: http://linux.about.com/library/cmd/blcmdl1_uptime.htm

Unfortunately, server had not been shut down, so I still don't know the root cause of my problem....