In SAS 9.4M9 on Windows, PostgreSQL bulk load operations with PROC APPEND with BULKLOAD=YES might fail with the following error:

ERROR: Invalid value for BL_PSQL_PATH.

Note that the same code works correctly in SAS^® 9.4M8 (TS1M8).

This issue is caused by a regression introduced in SAS 9.4M9 on Windows as part of a security-related code change.

In SAS 9.4M9, additional validation logic was added for external executable paths used during bulk load, which resulted in the following:

• BL_PSQL_PATH fails validation in SAS 9.4M9, even for valid Windows paths.
• Paths that contain spaces (for example, C:\Program Files\...) are rejected.
• The option is still documented and supported, but the validation logic is overly restrictive.

This change affects the following:

• BL_PSQL_PATH
• BL_YB_PATH (Yellowbrick)

To circumvent this issue, do the following:

• Remove BL_PSQL_PATH= from the PROC APPEND statement.
• Ensure the directory that contains psql.exe is included in the Windows PATH

Currently, there is no supported workaround that allows the continued use of BL_PSQL_PATH= in SAS 9.4M9 on Windows.