topic Re: File format in SAS Programming

File format

ambadi007 — Thu, 22 Mar 2018 08:30:55 GMT

My client is saying the input files will be coming in the below format

The files we are getting will be ~ delimmited and with no text qualifires and the freq is none

could you please explain me what is text qualifires and the freq is none ?

Re: File format

Kurt_Bremser — Thu, 22 Mar 2018 08:36:06 GMT

Text qualifiers probably means quotes around character fields.

Freq is none has me stumped, either.

Can you supply an example of the file? Overwrite confidential information with x'es.

Posting the exact file documentation as you got it can also help.

Re: File format

Kurt_Bremser — Thu, 22 Mar 2018 08:37:28 GMT

And I moved your question to "Base SAS Programming", where it belongs. Nothing Administrative here 😉

Re: File format

ambadi007 — Thu, 22 Mar 2018 08:41:07 GMT

The file is yet to provide by the team , I will let you know once I have it

thanks as always

Re: File format

Patrick — Thu, 22 Mar 2018 09:21:49 GMT

@ambadi007

Sounds like pretty .... requirements.

The file you get does not necessarily showcase the full requirements you have to build against.

I interpret "no text qualifiers" the same as @Kurt_Bremser

"freq is none" could mean different things like:

- no header or footer information providing a record count

- no defined frequency in regards of data delivery (daily, weekly, monthly,....)

What I would do in such a situation:

Wait until you get an actual file to inspect but then make sure that you verify with your client all the requirements where you're not yet crystal clear about - and put whatever you've got as an outcome into a confirmation email to your client where you clearly list your understanding of the requirements (bullet list style).

This will help you to avoid misunderstandings, protect you against surprises and make it much easier to have the discussion later on in regards of "not delivered to spec" as opposed to "change in requirement".

And to add to the above:

If you are in a consulting situation and your client is not able to provide you with a reasonable interface specification the you have eventually to write such a (lightweight) specification on your own and then have your client to confirm/approve it. You will need to add things like data structure/data dictionary(column order, length, type,...), encoding (single or multi byte), with or without header/footer column, required validations etc. etc.

Re: File format

ballardw — Thu, 22 Mar 2018 15:25:38 GMT

@ambadi007 wrote:

My client is saying the input files will be coming in the below format

The files we are getting will be ~ delimmited and with no text qualifires and the freq is none

could you please explain me what is text qualifires and the freq is none ?

Here is an example of comma delimited with "quote qualified text"

Column1, Column2, Column3
12345,"qualified, as this has a comma in the value",oneword

Generally the quote qualifiers come in when the delimiter may appear as a value inside a variables value.

If a delimiter that does not appear in the values is use then the qualifier wouldn't be needed

so if the delimiter is changed to a pipe character | which does not appear in text written by people very often you could have

Column1, Column2, Column3
12345|qualified, as this has a comma in the value|oneword

So the second column with the same text no longer needs the " " to protect the comma in the value.

Ideally the file supplier would tell you want each of the columns in the data represent, expected lengths of variables and whether the values are actually numeric (to calculate with) or not. The example column1 could be an identifier such as an account number which should not be numeric (especially if 16 or more digits long) as it is not numeric.

Dates and such should also have the format specified.

Also stumped on the "freq is none".