How to Check if Dataset Exists in SAS (With Example)

You can use the following macro in SAS to quickly check if a dataset exists:

%macro check_exists(data);
   %if %sysfunc(exist(&data.)) %then %do;
      %put Dataset Exists;
   %end;
   %else %do;
      %put Dataset Does Not Exist;
   %end;
%mend check_exists;

When you run this macro, it will return “Dataset Exists” if a dataset exists.

Otherwise, it will return “Does Not Exist.”

The following example shows how to use this macro in practice.

Example: Check if Dataset Exists in SAS

Suppose we create the following dataset in SAS called data1:

/*create dataset*/
data data1;
    input hours score;
    datalines;
1 64
2 66
4 76
5 73
5 74
6 81
6 83
7 82
8 80
10 88
;
run;

/*view dataset*/
proc print data=data1;

We can define the following macro to check if a dataset exists:

%macro check_exists(data);
   %if %sysfunc(exist(&data.)) %then %do;
      %put Dataset Exists;
   %end;
   %else %do;
      %put Dataset Does Not Exist;
   %end;
%mend check_exists;

We can then run this macro to check if the dataset called data1 exists:

/*check if dataset called data1 exists*/
%check_exists(data1);

When we view the log, we can see that the macro returns Does Exist since data1 does indeed exist:

Now suppose we also run the macro to check if a dataset called data2 exists:

/*check if dataset called data2 exists*/
%check_exists(data2);

When we view the log, we can see that the macro returns Does Not Exist since a dataset called data2 has never been created.

Note: You can find the complete documentation for the EXIST function in SAS here.

Additional Resources

The following tutorials explain how to perform other common tasks in SAS:

How to Delete Datasets in SAS
How to Rename Variables in SAS
How to Create New Variables in SAS