topic Re: SAS automatically left-justifying input text line? in SAS Programming

SAS automatically left-justifying input text line?

DougZ — Wed, 31 Jan 2018 18:28:32 GMT

When I read my input text line, SAS thinks it starts in column 1... but I need to write out another text file with the same indentation that was found in that input text file.

data test;
    infile cards;
    input line: $1-80;
    line_begn_posn = notspace(line);
    put line= line_begn_posn=;
    cards;
The xyz
    %mymacro
    myteststring
;
run;

Re: SAS automatically left-justifying input text line?

art297 — Wed, 31 Jan 2018 18:43:48 GMT

data test;
    infile cards;
    input @1 line $char80.;
    line_begn_posn = notspace(line);
    put line= line_begn_posn=;
    cards;
The xyz
    %mymacro
    myteststring
;
run;

Art, CEO, AnalystFinder.com

Re: SAS automatically left-justifying input text line?

Reeza — Wed, 31 Jan 2018 18:45:14 GMT

https://communities.sas.com/t5/General-SAS-Programming/Keep-leading-spaces-and-blank-records/td-p/173675

This works for me:

data test;
    infile cards;
    input @1 line $char80.;
    line_begn_posn = notspace(line);
    put line= line_begn_posn=;
    cards;
The xyz
    %mymacro
    myteststring
;
run;

Re: SAS automatically left-justifying input text line?

Astounding — Wed, 31 Jan 2018 18:52:13 GMT

Once you read the value in with the leading blanks ($char80 informat), you can write it out the same way:

data test;
infile cards;
input line $char80.;

    put line $char80.;
    cards;
The xyz
    %mymacro
    myteststring
;

Re: SAS automatically left-justifying input text line?

novinosrin — Wed, 31 Jan 2018 18:56:50 GMT

data test2;
    infile cards ;
    input @;
    line=_infile_;
    cards;
The xyz
    %mymacro
    myteststring
;
run;

Re: SAS automatically left-justifying input text line?

DougZ — Wed, 31 Jan 2018 18:58:51 GMT

That's great. Not sure why that works and my code did not.

Re: SAS automatically left-justifying input text line?

Reeza — Wed, 31 Jan 2018 18:59:34 GMT

The link in my post has an explanation.

Re: SAS automatically left-justifying input text line?

novinosrin — Wed, 31 Jan 2018 19:09:58 GMT

@DougZ interesting question indeed.

1.Let me add some spice to the &char80. informat. Place a : (colon) if you were to read as modified list input coz not every record will have values of 80 chars. And in this case we go back to square losing our needed leading blanks

2. ok, if we choose to read with formatted input and NOT modified list input, you are running a risk of reading the next value supposing there are multiple vars to be read

3. Taking 1 and 2 makes this situation indeed tricky. Of course, this leads us to think of next options like $varying informat and use col= options and so on.

Re: SAS automatically left-justifying input text line?

DougZ — Wed, 31 Jan 2018 19:17:38 GMT

Art - thanks. That works too.

Re: SAS automatically left-justifying input text line?

DougZ — Wed, 31 Jan 2018 19:18:31 GMT

Reeza - this makes sense, not sure why I didn't use a $char80. - thanks for your solution!

Re: SAS automatically left-justifying input text line?

DougZ — Wed, 31 Jan 2018 19:20:18 GMT

Thanks to each of you who has posted a solution!