In SAS 9.4, when you access a file defined with the FILENAME statement using the FTP engine with the FILEREF and FEXIST functions, they might return incorrect results. The problem occurs if the data set being accessed is a TAPE data set or if the file generates a 4xx or 5xx message from the FTP server.

For example, if you specify the DEBUG option in the FILENAME statement using the FTP engine, as shown in the following code:

filename intape ftp "'remote.tape.dataset'" user=userid pass=password 
    host=hostname  debug;  
data _null_;
  %put fexist=%sysfunc(fexist(intape));    
  %put fileref=%sysfunc(fileref(intape));  
RUN;

This note appears in your SAS log and the function results are incorrect.

NOTE: <<< 450 Data set remote.tape.dataset is allocated to another job and is unavailable for RETR command.

In this scenario, the FEXIST function returns a value of 0 instead of 1. This value incorrectly indicates that the file does not exist when it does.

The FILEREF function returns a value of -20006 instead of the correct value of 0.

Click the Hot Fix tab in this note to access the hot fix for this issue.

Operating System and Release Information

A fix for this issue for Base SAS 9.4_M2 is available at:

A fix for this issue for Base SAS 9.4_M1 is available at: