topic Reading tab delimited file using SAS in SAS Programming

Reading tab delimited file using SAS

DeepSiv — Sun, 28 Jul 2013 22:35:42 GMT

Hi all

I am trying to read a tab delimited file from Mainframes in AIX via SAS FTP. I am using the following FILENAME statement:

FILENAME FTP TEST "'TEST.FILENAME.ABC'" HOST="HSSS.SYS.XYZ.COM" USER="USERN" PASS="PASSWORD";

DATA TEST;

INFILE TEST DLM='05'X DSD MISSOVER TRUNCOVER;

INPUT YEAR $4

M0 $2

NAME $4

CODE $6;

RUN;

I am using these statements inside Unix (AIX). The DLM statements seem to have no effect while reading. Here '05'x refers to hexa value of tab in EBCDIC (Mainframes). I tried using '09'x as well as hexa is represented by '09'x in ASCII (Unix).

But none of them seem to have effect on the input file.

Is anyone aware of reading tab delimited files via FTP from Mainframes on Unix.

Any help in this regard would be highly appreciated.

Thanks.

Re: Reading tab delimited file using SAS

Tom — Sun, 28 Jul 2013 22:46:22 GMT

First look at what is actually in the file. Add a LIST statement after the INPUT and SAS will show you what it has received. Any non printable characters such as a tab will cause SAS to list the actual hex values of the characters.

RULE: ----+----1----+----2----+----3

1 CHAR Alfred.M.14.69.112.5 20

ZONE 46676604033033033323

NUMR 1C62549D9149699112E5

2 CHAR Alice.F.13.56.5.84 18

ZONE 466660403303323033

NUMR 1C93596913956E5984

3 CHAR Barbara.F.13.65.3.98 20

ZONE 46766760403303323033

NUMR 212212196913965E3998

NOTE: 3 records were read from the infile TMPFILE2.

Re: Reading tab delimited file using SAS

Tom — Sun, 28 Jul 2013 23:21:48 GMT

If you are reading a delimited file you should not use formatted input style as it could read right past the delimiter or stop short and throw off breaking the line up at the delimiters. Unless you specify BINARY on the FTP then the file will be converted to ASCII, since you are reading the character variables as ASCII instead of EBCDIC then you should use '09'x for the delimiter. There is almost never a case when you want to use MISSOVER option instead of the TRUNCOVER option. Plus your code is not using it anyway as you have overridden it by adding the TRUNCOVER option.

DATA TEST;

INFILE TEST DLM='09'X DSD TRUNCOVER;

LENGTH YEAR $4 M0 $2 NAME $4 CODE $6 ;

INPUT YEAR M0 NAME CODE ;

RUN;

Re: Reading tab delimited file using SAS

DeepSiv — Mon, 29 Jul 2013 01:19:59 GMT

Awesome! It worked perfect! So insightful! Thank you!