If you want to compress the stuff as much as possible save your data sets in text format (csv etc), then compress them (it works much better than the SAS data set compression).

I would suggest looking at 7-Zip, www.7-Zip.org -- the _best_ file archiver available for Windows (command line version included). You can run the commands from SAS (X, systask command) or a batch file.

Another solution is to install Windows Services For Unix and run Gzip on top of it. Unlike wzzip (command line add-on for WinZip), Gzip will recursively compress all files from all subfolders with a single command line (an additional letter, -r, needs to be included). This is much better than some SAS code/batch script do loop that would run the same zip command for each individual file in a folder ... it's about as simple and robust as possible.

My assumption is that it's (much) safer to compress each file individually or even split big data sets and compress the parts separately (no tar before gzip). If you put several big data sets into a single zip file and that file is corrupted, then you lose everything.

HTH, 'bogdar-group' [.a#t,] 'mailblocks' |d,o.t c~o^m|

-----Original Message----- From: Jamie [mailto:longj@AISL.UK.COM] Sent: Friday, June 04, 2004 3:03 AM To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU Subject: Using Sas Code to zip datasets

Hi there

I am looking to find a way to use SAS code to zip up some large datasets that I want to backup.

I currently use winzip 7.0. Is there any way I can do this?

Any help would be greatfully appreciated

Thanks in advance

Jamie