Moving and Accessing SAS Files across Operating Environments

Using PROC CONTENTS to Determine the SAS Base Engine That Was Used to Create a SAS File

You can use the CONTENTS procedure on all Version 6 and Version 7 and later hosts to find which base SAS engine was used to create a SAS file.

Note: Because neither CMS hosts nor OS/390 hosts use filename extensions, you must use PROC CONTENTS to determine the SAS base engine that was used to create SAS files on these hosts. [cautionend]

Here is an example of using PROC CONTENTS on a data set in the OS/390 environment:

proc contents data=test.records;
run;

Here is an excerpt of the output:

    The SAS System
    The CONTENTS Procedure
Data Set Name: TEST.RECORDS
Member Type:   DATA
Engine:        V8

The output reports that the data set RECORDS is a member of type DATA that was created with the V8 engine.

You can also use PROC CONTENTS to find out whether a data set's host format is foreign or native to the accessing host. For more information, see Finding Out if You Can Update a File That Was Created with CEDA.

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