Moving and Accessing SAS Files across Operating Environments

Finding Out if You Can Update a File That Was Created with CEDA

Here are two ways to find out if you can update a file that was created with CEDA.

Try it. If you are not allowed to update the file, you receive this error message:
```
ERROR: Updating not allowed for file CHEM.CMVS because 
it was created for a different operating system.
```
where CHEM is a libref and CMVS is a member name.
It is assumed that the file format is foreign to the format of the accessing host.
Use the CONTENTS procedure to find out the data representation of the file. If the output includes this field entry:
```
Data Representation:  FOREIGN
```
then you cannot update the file. Otherwise, there is no specification of data representation, which implies that the format of the file and the native format of the accessing host are the same.