topic Re: Importing txt file error in SAS Programming

Importing txt file error

jmmedina252 — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 20:33:49 GMT

My file is a .txt file with ',' delimiters and when using the below code:

proc import file="\\file_location\file_name.txt" dbms=dlm
out=dlmread replace;
delimiter=',';
datarow=2;
getnames=yes;
run;

I keep getting this error:

Unable to sample external file, no data in first 5 records.
ERROR: Import unsuccessful. See SAS Log for details.

Re: Importing txt file error

Tom — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 20:46:08 GMT

Since you told it that the first row has the variable names then it probably is only seeing one row in the file.

So you either do NOT have a file with lines of text at all. Perhaps it is just a binary file or a file with fixed length records.

But the most common cause is that the file was written by Excel on a Mac and it is using carriage return as the end of line marker. For some reason Excel on the Mac didn't get the message that MacOS is a version of UNIX now and it should use linefeed as the end of line marker.

Try actually looking at the file to see what it contains.

First try reading it as fixed length records and see if there are CR ('0D'x) or LF('0A'x) or both ('0D0A'x) at the end of the lines.

data _null_;
  infile "\\file_location\file_name.txt" recfm=f lrecl=100 obs=5 ;
  input;
  list;
run;

Also try reading it with different options for the TERMSTR= option of the infile statement.

data _null_;
  infile "\\file_location\file_name.txt" termstr=cr obs=5 ;
  input;
  list;
run;

Once you have looked at the file you can probably just skip the guessing procedure and write your own data step to read it.

Re: Importing txt file error

Kurt_Bremser — Wed, 15 Mar 2023 21:01:12 GMT

Open the file with Notepad++ (a strongly recommended text editor for anyone doing programming). It will tell you the line-ending style (Windows, UNIX or Macintosh) in the status line.