topic Re: Output SAS data into various txt files in SAS Data Management

Output SAS data into various txt files

wutao9999 — Fri, 08 Jan 2016 19:51:55 GMT

I have a SAS data as attached. I will need to input the data into three different txt files, each file contains the the data as below:

for file: a.dat, it has

3053

2.5

66.3

for file b.dat, it has

78.1

2.4

49.2

455

Basically, I need to create different files based on the distinct attributes in file_name. Thank you for the help.

Re: Output SAS data into various txt files

Reeza — Fri, 08 Jan 2016 19:57:46 GMT

You talk about input and output. Are you creating text files or reading text files into SAS?

Re: Output SAS data into various txt files

wutao9999 — Fri, 08 Jan 2016 20:04:26 GMT

sorry for misleading you. I mean output the data into txt file. When outputting, I prefer has no attribute name outputted to the txt file, just purely the data. Thank you.

Re: Output SAS data into various txt files

Reeza — Fri, 08 Jan 2016 20:45:19 GMT

Use the filevar option and a put statement within a data step.

There's a lot of examples out there...

https://communities.sas.com/t5/Base-SAS-Programming/Export-CSV-File/td-p/58898

Re: Output SAS data into various txt files

wutao9999 — Fri, 08 Jan 2016 22:08:55 GMT

data want_final;

set want4;

FILE='C:\Users\output\'|| file_name || '.xls' ;

file OUT filevar=FILE mod dlm=' ';

put file_name index num;

run;

I used the above code. However, ".xls" is not added into the file name.

If I pre-add .xls to all file name, I was albe to create all individual .xls files with different names. However, the data of file_name, index, num are all sqeezed into one excel cell, instead of spreading into three cells in each row.

Re: Output SAS data into various txt files

ballardw — Fri, 08 Jan 2016 22:54:37 GMT

It is getting to be a bad idea to "lie" to Microsoft applications by naming them one way but not actually being the implied name.

You are creating a text file. If you want to open it by default in Excel then better would be to use CSV as the extention and DLM=','. Excel doesn't treat space as a delimiter unless you go through the Excel file import wizard.

Or use Proc export to a CSV file.

Re: Output SAS data into various txt files

Reeza — Sat, 09 Jan 2016 00:02:59 GMT

Look into ODS TAGSETS.EXCELXP or if you're on SAS 9.4 ODS EXCEL.

If you want native excel in a plain format, PROC EXPORT also works great.

If you don't have the appropriate SAS license, look into this macro.

http://www.sascommunity.org/wiki/A_Poor/Rich_SAS_Users_Proc_Export

Re: Output SAS data into various txt files

Reeza — Sat, 09 Jan 2016 00:04:26 GMT

Also, the question states text file, what's with adding in Excel? I'm not clear on what you're trying to do...