https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Programming/Specifying-an-end-of-record-delimiter/m-p/66576#M14461 None that I'm aware of - so you will need to consider byte/character level INPUT parsing your input to load a DATALINE variable (of sufficient length) while looking for your artificial using @ pointer technique, logical record-segment delimiter. Then you have a couple of choices, such as re-write the file to a temporary location, and then use another set of INPUT statement logic to read the file, otherwise you can use the INPUT function to work your way through the logical data sub-fields.<BR /> <BR /> Scott Barry<BR /> SBBWorks, Inc. Mon, 24 Aug 2009 17:07:07 GMT sbb 2009-08-24T17:07:07Z https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Programming/Specifying-an-end-of-record-delimiter/m-p/66575#M14460 I have an ASCII text file where the data is delimited by one character and the records are delimited by another. When I try to read the file, I just get one very long record. How can I tell SAS that the "~" is the end of the record, and to start reading a new record with the next character? Records are variable length. Mon, 24 Aug 2009 14:40:23 GMT https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Programming/Specifying-an-end-of-record-delimiter/m-p/66575#M14460 deleted_user 2009-08-24T14:40:23Z https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Programming/Specifying-an-end-of-record-delimiter/m-p/66576#M14461 None that I'm aware of - so you will need to consider byte/character level INPUT parsing your input to load a DATALINE variable (of sufficient length) while looking for your artificial using @ pointer technique, logical record-segment delimiter. Then you have a couple of choices, such as re-write the file to a temporary location, and then use another set of INPUT statement logic to read the file, otherwise you can use the INPUT function to work your way through the logical data sub-fields.<BR /> <BR /> Scott Barry<BR /> SBBWorks, Inc. Mon, 24 Aug 2009 17:07:07 GMT https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Programming/Specifying-an-end-of-record-delimiter/m-p/66576#M14461 sbb 2009-08-24T17:07:07Z