Date:         Thu, 15 Feb 2001 09:45:10 -0500
Reply-To:     "Vyverman, Koen" <koen.vyverman@FID-INTL.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         "Vyverman, Koen" <koen.vyverman@FID-INTL.COM>
Subject:      Re: Vanishing Act: data set name oddity
Comments: To: "List SAS-L (E-mail)" <sas-l@uga.cc.uga.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

A bit of follow-up on this one: thanks to Wei Cheng, Carol
Gosselin, and Master Whitlock himself for confirming the in-
credible disappearing data set on various flavours of Windows
with SAS 8.something ...

I was not hallucinating after all :-). Ian also pointed out
that '_TO...' data sets are not only invisible to the Explorer
and the SASHELP views, but also to PROC CONTENTS and PROC
DATASETS.

Dangerous territory ... I've notified the SI help desk in
Brussels, and hope that they'll forward a bug report inter-
nally. Original posting included below.

Cheers,
Koen.



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vyverman, Koen [mailto:koen.vyverman@FID-INTL.COM]
> Sent: Friday, February 09, 2001 11:56 AM
> To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Vanishing Act: data set name oddity
>
>
> Hi,
>
> I'm using 8e on Windoze (NT) and noticed something very odd
> here ... Unless it's documented oddity, which would make it
> a feature, but I can't locate any reference to this phenomenon
> in the OnlineDoc or on the SI Tech Support site:
>
> When I create data sets with names of the form '_TO.....',
> they just don't show up in the SAS Explorer window. I know
> they're there, I can see them in the Win Explorer, I can
> use them in subsequent data step code, I can view them with
> an fsv command, but they just don't show in the SAS Explorer.
>
> What's worse, they're also not visible in the SASHELP.VTABLE
> view, causing programs to crash because of missing values
> being returned from consulting the dictionary tables. Annoying,
> to say the least.
>
> Can anyone reproduce this? Or do I need to tweak some obscure
> local settings that make data sets starting with the string
> '_TO' transparant to SASHELP views and the SAS Explorer? If you
> run this:
>
> data _total;
>   x=5;
> run;
>
> Does _TOTAL show up in your SAS Explorer? Can you see it in
> SASHELP.VTABLE?
>
> I know, "well, then, just don't name your files that way, eh"
> is a solution, but I'd like to know what goes on here ...
>
> Puzzled,
> Koen Vyverman.
>