topic Re: & and missing value in SAS Programming

& and missing value

mnew — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 17:34:09 GMT

Experts:
Any tips on why this does not work? The first value for Name has an embedded blank so between Name and Amount, I used two blanks for the first 3 rows. They read in fine. The last observation does not have a value for Name. I tried to add one or two blanks before the amount (40), but still could not read in the last row correctly.
Thanks!

data work.test;
infile datalines missover DSD DLM=' ';
input Name$ & Amount;
datalines;
Dan Inc 100
Mary 80
John 200
40
;
run;
proc print data=work.test;
run;

Re: & and missing value

bheinsius — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 17:51:15 GMT

What is the meaning of the & in your code?

Re: & and missing value

sbb — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 18:22:44 GMT

Reading the INPUT statement DOC, it clearly states "...next non-blank column...".

http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/lrdict/63026/HTML/default/viewer.htm#a000144370.htm

If there is a chance you will have a blank value, then you will need to consider using the _INFILE_ automatic variable to parse your input record with the SCAN function (or possibly using FIND, INDEX/INDEXW/INDEXC).

Scott Barry
SBBWorks, Inc.

Google advanced search argument, this topic / post:

input list format modifier site:sas.com

Re: & and missing value

Ksharp — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 05:21:02 GMT

Hi.
Very interesting.
So used three blanks for the first 3 rows,two blanks for the last row.

[pre]
data work.test;
infile datalines missover dsd DLM=' ';
input Name & $ +1 Amount;
datalines;
Dan Inc 100
Mary 80
John 200
40
;
run;
proc print data=work.test;
run;
[/pre]

Ksharp

Re: & and missing value

Peter_C — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 17:27:33 GMT

> read in fine. The last observation does not have a
> value for Name. I tried to add one or two blanks
> before the amount (40), but still could not read in
> the last row correctly.

the thing to add before that 40 is a dot [pre]. 40[/pre] good luck

Re: & and missing value

mnew — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 01:02:36 GMT

> What is the meaning of the & in your code?

&: see this site
http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/lrcon/62955/HTML/default/viewer.htm#a003209907.htm

The & (ampersand) format modifier enables you to read character values that contains one or more embedded blanks with list input and to specify a character informat. SAS reads until it encounters two consecutive blanks, the defined length of the variable, or the end of the input line, whichever comes first.

Re: & and missing value

mnew — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 01:22:20 GMT

Thanks! Your code worked. Creative solution :).

Re: & and missing value

mnew — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 17:47:24 GMT

Puzzling but this idea works great too. I originally thought we could not use . as Name is a character variable. Thank you for the reply!

Re: & and missing value

mnew — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 17:48:59 GMT

Thank you. Good suggestion. So much to learn.

Re: & and missing value

Peter_C — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 14:39:00 GMT

the small print in the doc points out that the default informat for char data is $. $CHAR. would return . for ., but $. treats . as "missing" for which the stored value is blank.

Re: & and missing value

mnew — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 17:00:25 GMT

Thank you. The additional explanation is very helpful.