topic Re: opening .dat files in sas university edition in SAS Programming

opening .dat files in sas university edition

rk7 — Sun, 03 Dec 2017 00:37:30 GMT

I tried to open a .dat file in order to see the contents/data in the file. I stored the file in a shared location and try to open it in the browser. It din't open , moreover it was downloaded. can u pls help me in opening the opening the file to see what data we have in that file.

Thank you

P.S. attached the .dat file

Re: opening .dat files in sas university edition

ChrisBrooks — Sun, 03 Dec 2017 01:27:03 GMT

The reason the file was downloaded and not opened is that a .DAT file isn't a SAS file. In fact .DAT is an extension used for many different types of files which can sometimes only be opened by the application that created them. You might, however, be in luck if the .DAT files you want to read are text based delimited files like CSVs. Try opening them in a text editor to check out the format and if it's a plain text delimited file try Proc Import.

Re: opening .dat files in sas university edition

rk7 — Sun, 03 Dec 2017 13:50:10 GMT

Thanks can u explain more about proc import

Re: opening .dat files in sas university edition

ChrisBrooks — Mon, 04 Dec 2017 00:20:09 GMT

Proc Import is a SAS supplied routine you can use to convert many different file types into SAS Data Sets - you can find the documentation here -> http://documentation.sas.com/?docsetId=acpcref&docsetTarget=p0mqdq52ktqgjjn1vseqoiuyt3v1.htm&docsetVersion=9.4&locale=en and numerous online examples via a Google Search.

Re: opening .dat files in sas university edition

rk7 — Mon, 04 Dec 2017 02:57:50 GMT

Thank you

Re: opening .dat files in sas university edition

Kurt_Bremser — Mon, 04 Dec 2017 07:35:23 GMT

Anytime you encounter a SAS problem, do a (google) search for "sas text_of_your_problem". This works well with statements, functions, formats, procedures, but also ERROR or WARNING messages.

See Maxim 6.

Re: opening .dat files in sas university edition

rk7 — Mon, 04 Dec 2017 18:53:59 GMT

Thanks