topic Re: Why answer is this? in SAS Programming

Why answer is this?

mohitraj4u — Tue, 02 Jan 2018 07:40:21 GMT

Given the text file COLORS.TXT:

----+----1----+----2----+----

RED ORANGE YELLOW GREEN

BLUE INDIGO PURPLE VIOLET

CYAN WHITE FUCSIA BLACK

GRAY BROWN PINK MAGENTA

The following SAS program is submitted:

data WORK.COLORS;

infile 'COLORS.TXT';

input @1 Var1 $ @8 Var2 $ @;

input @1 Var3 $ @8 Var4 $ @;
run;

What will the data set WORK.COLORS contain?

Answer:

Var1 Var2 Var3 Var4
------ ------ ------ ------
RED ORANGE RED ORANGE
BLUE INDIGO BLUE INDIGO
CYAN WHITE CYAN WHITE
GRAY BROWN GRAY BROWN

Re: Why answer is this?

Kurt_Bremser — Tue, 02 Jan 2018 07:46:31 GMT

The trailing @ holds the record pointer in the current line, so the second input statement re-reads positions 1 and 8; the third and fourth column of the infile are therefore never read.

Re: Why answer is this?

Reeza — Tue, 02 Jan 2018 15:58:39 GMT

@Look at the INPUT statement. You are using both @ to denote the position of where to start reading and a trailing @.

@the trailing @ keeps the pointer at the line for that data step iteration. At the next data step iteration it moves on. Check the behaviour by running the code with and without the trailing @.

input @1 Var1 $ @8 @Var2 $ @; <- reads var1 starting from position1, var2 from position 8 and holds the line.

input @1 Var3 $ @8@ Var4 $ @; <- reads var3 starting from position1, var4 from position 8 and holds the line. The run allows it to move to a new line.

@mohitraj4u wrote:

Given the text file COLORS.TXT:

----+----1----+----2----+----

RED ORANGE YELLOW GREEN

BLUE INDIGO PURPLE VIOLET

CYAN WHITE FUCSIA BLACK

GRAY BROWN PINK MAGENTA

The following SAS program is submitted:

data WORK.COLORS;

infile 'COLORS.TXT';

@ input @1 Var1 $ @8 Var2 $ @;

@ input @1 Var3 $ @8 Var4 $ @;
run;

What will the data set WORK.COLORS contain?

Answer:

Var1 Var2 Var3 Var4
------ ------ ------ ------
RED ORANGE RED ORANGE
BLUE INDIGO BLUE INDIGO
CYAN WHITE CYAN WHITE
GRAY BROWN GRAY BROWN