I've received several SAS dataset files with the .sas7bdat extension. I'm using SAS 9.3 on windows, and the creator of these files was evidently using a different environment and/or software. Many of the files have var names that include spaces and other invalid characters. Even running a proc contents raises an error like this:
ERROR: The value Person ID is not a valid SAS name.
Oddly, SAS Enterprise Guide opens and displays the file without complaining.
How do I efficiently re-name all my bad var names so that I can start running actual programs with these files?
In addition to option validvarname=ANY; you also need to reference the variable names as name literals: 'Person ID'n (either single or double quotes are fine).
If you want to efficiently rename all of them, you can do something like this:
options validvarname=any;
data have;
'Hello Var'n = 1;
'Another Var'n = 2;
x=3;
run;
data badvarnames;
set sashelp.vcolumn;
where libname='WORK' and memname='HAVE' and not nvalid(name,'v7');
validname = translate(trim(name),'_',' ');
name = cats("'",name,"'n");
run;
proc sql;
select catx(' ','rename',name,'=',validname,';') into :renamelist
separated by ' ' from badvarnames;
quit;
proc datasets lib=work;
modify have;
&renamelist;
quit;
proc contents data=have;
run;
Depending on other details (such as the possibility that this might create overlapping variable names), you might need to adjust the code for those concerns.
I don't think it is a different OS/SAS version. I think that you may need to submit the following
options validvarname = ANY;
