You need to address multiple delimiters to address the misread, in your case it is comma + whatever invisible except blank  (line feed, carriage return or tab?), this can't be illustrated by using in-stream data feed, as the normal behavior of 'input' statement changes.    filename FT15f001 temp; Data RudolphXmasList; dlm=','||'0D'x||'0A'x||'09'x; infile FT15F001 dlm=dlm; input DeerName :$20. Gift :$20. @@; parmcards; Dasher, hay bale, Dancer, stocking cap, Prancer, candy canes, Vixen, red dress, Comet, astrology book, Cupid, bow and arrows, Donner, lump of coal, Blitzen, snow shoes ;     ... View more

I like this approach, however, there are 2 things I will keep in mind when using it: 1. If all of the 'x' are missing for the same 'id', 'x' from other 'id' will be brought in, and I am not sure if that is the desired outcome for OP. This can be easily fixed by putting a 'id' check in place. 2. If the table are too big to fit in Ram.     ... View more

Sort first by id ,descending date, then do a retain, then sort it back to original order should work. The following data step is to do a literal fetch from first non-missing down the line, within the same id. The SQL coding is straightfoward, however, it may not be efficient for large files.   data HAVE; input month_begin_dt :mmddyy10. id x :best32.; format month_begin_dt date9.; datalines; 1/1/2013 1 . 2/1/2013 1 . 3/1/2013 1 . 4/1/2013 1 0.15 5/1/2013 1 0.90 6/1/2013 1 0.34 7/1/2013 2 . 8/1/2013 2 . 9/1/2013 2 0.09 10/1/2013 2 0.28 11/1/2013 2 0.31 12/1/2013 2 0.79 ; run; data want; set have; if missing(x) then do; do i=_n_ by 1 until (not missing (_x) or _id ne id); set have (keep=x id rename=(x=_x id=_id)) point=i; end; end; x=coalesce(x,_x); drop _:; run; proc sql; create table want_sql as select month_begin_dt ,id ,coalesce(x,(select x from have where id=a.id and not missing(x) group by id having min(month_begin_dt)=month_begin_dt)) as x from have a ; quit; ... View more

Please do RTM. Pay extra attention to statement 'contents' and 'out=/out2=' options. http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/proc/65145/HTML/default/viewer.htm#p1v2467vdjbp7xn1222c7t3sejz3.htm ... View more

Look up 'Array' in SAS docs. ... View more

Thanks for clarification, Robert. Looking back to my post, one can easily be confused, especially when I used 'if'.  I am not editing it since we already have your post. ... View more