The SASEFRED Interface Engine

The following statements demonstrate how to use the URL= option to obtain the SERIES and SERIESS data sets for specified tag names and how to create a permanent data set named TAGS_SERIES4 in the MyLib SAS library:

title 'Specifying the URL= Option to Create the TAGS_SERIES4 Data Set.';
libname _all_ clear;
libname mylib "U:\fred940\doc\";

libname fred4 sasefred "U:\fred940\test\"
   debug=on
   URL="http://api.stlouisfed.org/fred/tags/series?tag_names=slovenia;food;oecd"
   APIKEY='XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX'
   ;

data mylib.tags_series4;
   set fred4.XFREDtpu;
run;

proc print
   data=mylib.tags_series4(obs=2);
run;

proc contents
   data=mylib.tags_series4;
run;

The returned data are stored in the XFREDTPU data set and are copied to the permanent data set named tags_series4.sas7bdat in the MyLib library. A side effect of the DATA step is the automatic creation of two SAS data sets named series.sas7bdat and seriess.sas7bdat in the FRED4 library’s location. Eighteen series are returned for the specified tag names; the OBS=2 option in the DATA statement in the PROC PRINT step prints only two of them. Output 48.9.1 shows the first two observations of the TAGS_SERIES4 data set.