topic Re: HTML Input in SAS Programming

HTML Input

rpmartin — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 00:18:34 GMT

Hi all,

I'm trying to convert some html that has company listings into a data set that has the company name and address. The general format for each company is something like this:

1.

Company Name

1 Test St

Suite 1

Test City, CA, 91763

(555) 555-5555

The input statement I'm using is:

input @'' ID 2.

@'' Name $40.

Address1 $40.

Address2 $40.

City $40.

Phone $40.

;

This comes close but has extra html in some fields and provides some erratic results, especially with the name and address fields. I've tried a few different things but I can't quite get it to work. Any input is greatly appreciated.

thanks in advance,

Rob

Re: HTML Input

Ksharp — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 04:22:09 GMT

Can you attach a html file ?

Re: HTML Input

Peter_C — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 07:45:13 GMT

WE need to be careful with INformats on input statements. A specific length there will require and use that much data even when you might think it should 'finish earlier'!

For example

address1 $40.

will consume 40 characters

Placing a : before the informat changes behaviour closer to what you want by using input buffer up to the next delimiter or all the informat length has been used whichever comes first.

You might want to allow '<' to be your delimiter as well as blank.

Re: HTML Input

rpmartin — Tue, 10 Apr 2012 16:02:44 GMT

Thanks Peter! Adding a colon and changing the delimiter worked just right.

In case any one is curious this is the input statement I ended up using:

infile test firstobs=77 dlm='<' ;

input @'' ID 2.

@'' Name : $40. /

Address1 : $40. /

Address2 : $40. /

City : $40. /

Phone : $40.

;

Thanks again!

Rob