topic Re: Removing quotes for text file export in SAS Programming

Removing quotes for text file export

val_nikolajevs — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 16:18:16 GMT

Hello Everyone,

I need to generate a text file from the following rows without " sign at the beginning and the end of each row.

data in dat_out1:

Row1 (used multiple lines with '0d'x,'0a'x (CRLF) line separator at the end of each line:

000011111 0000022222 033333 NNNNN

00001111a 000002222a 03333a NNNNN

00001111b 000002222b 03333b NNNNN

Row2:

000011111 0000022222 033333 NNNNN

00001111a 000002222a 03333a NNNNN

00001111b 000002222b 03333b NNNNN

Using the following code:

data _null_;
file "C:\test.txt" dsd dlm='' mod;
set dat_out1;
put (_all_) (+(-1));
run;

I got those results when see this in note pad:

"000011111 0000022222 033333 NNNNN

00001111a 000002222a 03333a NNNNN

00001111b 000002222b 03333b NNNNN"

"100011111 1000022222 133333 NNNNN

10001111a 100002222a 13333a NNNNN

10001111b 100002222b 13333b NNNNN"

And I need to get the following -- no separators, no quote signs only CRLF at the end of each line:

000011111 0000022222 033333 NNNNN

00001111a 000002222a 03333a NNNNN

00001111b 000002222b 03333b NNNNN

100011111 1000022222 133333 NNNNN

10001111a 100002222a 13333a NNNNN

10001111b 100002222b 13333b NNNNN

Is there an option to work directly with the txt file and do find/replace-delete " ?

Or export parameters should be modified?

Thank you for your help.

Val

Re: Removing quotes for text file export

JosvanderVelden — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 16:51:21 GMT

Because you have spaces in the row sas 'helps' by adding the quotes when you use the dlm option. Do you get the desired result if you remove the dlm option? If not try to use dlm=','

Best regards, Jos

Re: Removing quotes for text file export

val_nikolajevs — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 16:59:57 GMT

Thank you very much. That worked. I got desired results.

Re: Removing quotes for text file export

Tom — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 17:01:03 GMT

I don't understand what you dataset looks like. Do you just have the one variable?

The quotes are because the value being written includes the delimiter and you asked it to use the DSD option. It does not make any sense to include the DSD option. You are not writing delimited data. It might look delimited to you, but you have a already inserted the delimiters into the data and just want SAS to write the strings.

So if your string with the LF's is in a variable named VAR1 in the dataset name DAT_OUT1 then this code would append the values to the end of the file C:\test.txt. Note that it will write its own end of line characters after each observation.

data _null_;
  file "C:\test.txt" mod;
  set dat_out1;
  put var1 ;
run;

Re: Removing quotes for text file export

val_nikolajevs — Thu, 11 Mar 2021 17:07:59 GMT

Thank you.
Yes this a single variable
Your solution works too. delimiter was causing the problem.
Thank you,
Val