different results when input disk external file and in-stream data lines using infile

Steve1964 — Mon, 17 Jun 2019 03:10:46 GMT

I use input and infile statements with option in data step to input external data.

In first case, the external data are in-stream data lines and the code are

data test1;
infile datalines missover;
input num 5.;
datalines;
1
22
333
4444
5555
;
run;

tes1 has three observations,

333

4444

55555

In Second case ,the external data is in d:\mydata\x.txt and and the code are

data test;
infile 'd:\mydata\x.txt' missover;
input num 5.;
run;

test has its observation as following

5555

which is different from those in test1 completely. Why?

Re: different results when input disk external file and in-stream data lines using infile

Tom — Mon, 17 Jun 2019 03:38:17 GMT

SAS will pad in-line data records to an exact multiple of 80 characters (card images). That is why the behave differently.

But the real issue is that your INPUT statement is wrong. You are asking it to read EXACTLY five characters. If the line is shorter than five characters long (or has less than five character left before the end-of-line) then the INPUT statement will throw away those characters and move to the next file to find something that will satisfy what you wanted. Fortunately it only moves to the next line once (or else you would only get two observations). So the first two iterations of your data step both consume two lines from your text file.

You could add the TRUNCOVER option to the INFILE statement to change how it behaves when there are not enough characters on the line to satisfy the INPUT statement.

Or change the INPUT statement so it will not try to read so many characters. You could use LIST mode. Either by removing the informat (SAS does need special instructions for reading normal numbers). Or adding the : modifier before the informat specification.

topic Re: different results when input disk external file and in-stream data lines using infile in SAS Programming

different results when input disk external file and in-stream data lines using infile

Re: different results when input disk external file and in-stream data lines using infile