topic Re: DATA STEP problem in SAS Programming

DATA STEP problem

Kushal_1991 — Wed, 18 Sep 2013 20:10:49 GMT

Contents of a.txt

333

4444

55555

But when i run this code :

data numbers;

infile ’c:\a.txt’;

input var 5.;

/* list */ ;

run;

the data in numbers.sas is saved as :

var

var1
333
55555

But when i use the list the input buffer is somewhat like this :

RULE: ----+----1----+----2----+----3----+----4----+----5----+----6----+----7----+----8----+----

2 333 3

4 55555 5

Please explain

Re: DATA STEP problem

Reeza — Wed, 18 Sep 2013 20:46:23 GMT

Remove the 5. from the input statement and it reads in fine.

What do you need the 5.?

Re: DATA STEP problem

ballardw — Wed, 18 Sep 2013 21:48:25 GMT

You used list input which defaults to using spaces as delimiters between variables.

To read the first 5 characters as a single text value you want

input var $ 1-5;

The $ says to read it as character and the 1-5 says to read everything in those 5 columns.

Re: DATA STEP problem

Kushal_1991 — Thu, 19 Sep 2013 05:28:52 GMT

@Reeza I know without using 5. it will work fine......i just want to see how the buffer is reading the data. Actually I want to find out what is the default method of sas during column input when there is less no. of columns in an observation than specified in the input statement.

Re: DATA STEP problem

Kushal_1991 — Thu, 19 Sep 2013 05:29:22 GMT

Re: DATA STEP problem

Kushal_1991 — Thu, 19 Sep 2013 05:32:47 GMT

@ballardw, Its not a list input, lists dont generally use any pointer control. var $ 1-5 is column method.

Re: DATA STEP problem

ballardw — Thu, 19 Sep 2013 16:09:44 GMT

I mispoke, list and formatted input are mixed often enough I don't differentiate between them all the time. Your input is Formatted input; the period with the 5 makes it a numeric format with no decimals. You have not set a line pointer which would be indicated with either @n or +n.

See what you get with

input @2 var ;

then

input @5 var ;