topic Re: Data Files Non-English Characters in SAS University Edition in SAS Programming

Data Files Non-English Characters in SAS University Edition

Pete_Murphy — Tue, 25 Apr 2017 10:39:17 GMT

I am having some troubles reading in data files when using SAS University Edition.

I am teaching myself SAS using books like The Little SAS Book and its companion of Exercises and Projects (as well as using a bunch of other books).

I am having a consistent problem with printing libraries that have non English Characters e.g. ó, ú, ç or ä etc.

These characters appear in a data file that I am reading in. The initial input works fine without any errors but when I try to print out the data I get the following error:

ERROR: Invalid characters were present in the data.

ERROR: An error occurred while processing text data.

NOTE: The SAS System stopped processing this step because of errors.

I have looked at other similar postings such as the one [here] but can't seem to resolve the issue. It really seems the problem comes from the non-English character being present in the .txt file.

Now for some details:

I am Using:

SAS University Edition

Windows 10 version 1703

Firefox 52.0.2 (32-bit)

My code:

DATA Big_Companies;
	INFILE '/folders/myfolders/TheLittleSASBook/CodePractice/Chapter02/LogData/BigCompanies.txt';
	INPUT	Ranking 1-5
			Company_Name $ 6-34
			Country $ 35-52
			Sales $ 53-59
			Profits $ 60-68
			Assets $ 69-78
			Market_Value $ 79-88
	;
RUN;

PROC PRINT DATA = big_companies;
RUN;

The Data file is attached:

The Log file is attached:

Does anyone have any advice on how to print out data in SAS University Edition that contanins non-English characters?

Many thanks in advance, I appreciate the help

- Pete

Re: Data Files Non-English Characters in SAS University Edition

Kurt_Bremser — Tue, 25 Apr 2017 11:55:48 GMT

Just a guess, but try to add

encoding=wlatin1

in the infile statement. It might be that you get trouble because of the UTF-8 encoding of SAS UE.

Re: Data Files Non-English Characters in SAS University Edition

Tom — Tue, 25 Apr 2017 13:25:58 GMT

That does seem strange.

Is it possible that SAS is using wrong encoding when reading the file?

When trying to view your attached files on this site I see that the non-ascii characters make the columns not line up. Is it possible that by using column input you have truncated a multi-byte unicode character and hence made it invalid?

Did you try reading the file using modified list mode input instead?

DATA Big_Companies;
  INFILE '/folders/myfolders/TheLittleSASBook/CodePractice/Chapter02/LogData/BigCompanies.txt';
  length Ranking 8 Company_Name $40 Country $20 Sales Profits Assets Market_Value $12 ;
  input ranking company_name & Country & sales -- market_value;
run;

Re: Data Files Non-English Characters in SAS University Edition

Tom — Tue, 25 Apr 2017 13:39:08 GMT

I think it is definitely the encoding.

Re: Data Files Non-English Characters in SAS University Edition

Ksharp — Tue, 25 Apr 2017 13:43:23 GMT

Change another ODS destination ?

DATA Big_Companies;
	INFILE '/folders/myfolders/BigCompanies.txt';
	INPUT	Ranking 1-5
			Company_Name $ 6-34
			Country $ 35-52
			Sales $ 53-59
			Profits $ 60-68
			Assets $ 69-78
			Market_Value $ 79-88
	;
RUN;


ods _ALL_ CLOSE;
ods html file='/folders/myfolders/x.htm';
PROC PRINT DATA = big_companies;
RUN;

Open x.htm by hand .

Re: Data Files Non-English Characters in SAS University Edition

Pete_Murphy — Mon, 01 May 2017 05:39:15 GMT

Sorry I didn't post my thanks note earlier,

Yes, it was definately the encoding, I added in this line of text and it worked perfectly.

I appreciate the help from you and all the others who chimed in.

Pete