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Accessing Remote External Files

The SAS System supports access to external files across DECnet. You can create or read external files on any OpenVMS machine to which you have access in your DECnet network.

An external file that resides on another OpenVMS node can be specified in any statement that contains a quoted file specification. You can also define an OpenVMS logical name to point to a file on another node and then use the OpenVMS logical name in your SAS session as described in Assigning OpenVMS Logical Names to External Files. You can also use the FILENAME statement to assign a fileref to a remote external file. Within the quoted string, DEFINE command, or FILENAME statement, use the same syntax that you would use in any OpenVMS file specification to access a target node. For example, to access the file TEST.DAT on node VMSNODE, specify the following FILENAME statement:

filename mine 'vmsnode::mydisk:[mydir]test.data';

To include a user name and password of an account on the target node as part of the file specification, use the following FILENAME statement:

filename mine 'vmsnode "user-id 
             password"::mydisk:[mydir]test.data';

For more information about DECnet access and file specification syntax, refer to DECnet for OpenVMS Guide to Networking and DECnet for OpenVMS Networking Manual.

Note:    The MBC= and MBF= external I/O statement options are not supported across DECnet.  

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