topic What is the +2 in the below code ? in SAS Programming

What is the +2 in the below code ?

vishalrajpoot3 — Wed, 01 Aug 2018 17:07:08 GMT

What is the meaning of +2 in below code ?

What will be the impact on output ?

data abc;
input Type $ 1-5 + 2 Color $;
datalines;
daisyyellow
;
run;

Re: What is the +2 in the below code ?

Astounding — Wed, 01 Aug 2018 17:09:12 GMT

Having just read columns 1 through 5 to get a value for TYPE, SAS is now positioned to look for the next variable starting at column 6. The "+2" tells SAS to move two columns to the right, so it will start looking for a value for COLOR at column 8.

Re: What is the +2 in the below code ?

PaigeMiller — Wed, 01 Aug 2018 17:18:41 GMT

It means that there are 2 ignored characters to the right of position 5 (the end of variable Type) before variable color is read.

What is the impact on the output? Some things are left for the user to figure out. A simple way to figure out what the impact on the output will be is to actually run the code.