topic Re: Text File Creation in DI in SAS Programming

Text File Creation in DI

Aidan — Fri, 06 Jan 2017 11:06:46 GMT

Hi there,

I am trying to create a text file using user written code.

What I need to do is have a line at the top of the text file up to 100 characters.

Then I need to output my main data which could consist of a few thousand rows, which I am using the below code for.

PROC PRINT DATA=TCMPROC.TEST;
RUN;

PROC EXPORT DATA=TCMPROC.TEST
OUTFILE="\\C:\invoice_names.txt"
DBMS=TAB REPLACE;
PUTNAMES=YES;
RUN;
PROC PRINT;
RUN;

Then at the end of the file I need another line of data around 100 characters long to finish the text file.

How would I go about merging a unique header and footer record around the main data that I have by building on the code above?

Thanks,

Aidan

Re: Text File Creation in DI

mnjtrana — Mon, 09 Jan 2017 04:32:01 GMT

Hey,

If i understood correctly, you want to ass header and footer to your file.

You can use the FILE and put statement to write the header in the file and you can use the below code to write to the file.

But you need to remove the REPLACE option, as that would delete your file(and the header too).

Once the file is exported through proc export, you can open the file again and using option- MOD( its opens the file and append contents to the end of the file), See an example below:

DATA _null_;
file out mod;
put "------your footer here ----";
run;

Re: Text File Creation in DI

Aidan — Fri, 06 Jan 2017 12:31:47 GMT

Thank you I will try this today and let you know how it goes

Re: Text File Creation in DI

LinusH — Fri, 06 Jan 2017 14:23:30 GMT

In some environments all files are required to have header/footers. If this is the case for you, I would invest some time in creating a User Written Transformation instead, so you caneed reuse this logic.

Re: Text File Creation in DI

Patrick — Fri, 06 Jan 2017 22:02:36 GMT

It's good practice with DIS to avoid user written code as far as possible. I totally understand that this is not always feasable - but we can at least try.

What you could do is to have a pre-process implemented as user written code or as user transformation if you need this more than once and only write the header, then use a normal File Writer and add 'mod' under options so that the additional output gets appended to the external file.

In my working example I'm using the following code in the User Written transformation (Code generation mode: User written body):

data _null_;
 file "&_OUTPUT";
 put "--- my header line here ----";
run;

And then in the File Writer:

Which creates the following output:

--- my header line here ----
"Alfred","M","14","69","112.5"
"Alice","F","13","56.5","84"
"Barbara","F","13","65.3","98"
.....

Re: Text File Creation in DI

Patrick — Fri, 06 Jan 2017 22:05:18 GMT

@mnjtrana

I believe your code should be:

DATA _null_;
  file out mod;
  put "------your footer here ----";
  stop;
run;

Re: Text File Creation in DI

mnjtrana — Mon, 09 Jan 2017 04:31:20 GMT

Thanks, you are right.

Re: Text File Creation in DI

Aidan — Mon, 09 Jan 2017 09:30:34 GMT

Thank you for this, works very well with what I need.