topic Re: column name in SAS Programming

column name

AmrAd — Mon, 15 May 2023 08:21:53 GMT

i am trying to import bulk of files and create one dataset having all these files ,i am facing a problem that variable name is greater than 32 character and sas is not accepting this accordingly sas renames the header to serial as Name 1 name 2 .etc

i need to capture original header name to be able to append all the tables in one table

Re: column name

Kurt_Bremser — Mon, 15 May 2023 08:43:54 GMT

What kind of files do you need to import? Excel, text, or other?

Re: column name

JosvanderVelden — Mon, 15 May 2023 09:09:59 GMT

What file types will you import? ex. csv, xls, xlsx, delimited... Which encoding do these files have? ex. ANSI, UTF8 ... The header with varnames is a single line/row with less then 32676 characters?

Re: column name

AmrAd — Mon, 15 May 2023 09:17:04 GMT

Hi Josvander

i am trying to import XLSX file with UTF8 encoding

Re: column name

AmrAd — Mon, 15 May 2023 09:19:40 GMT

The header with varnames is a single line/row with less then 32676 characters?

yes

Re: column name

Kurt_Bremser — Mon, 15 May 2023 09:30:41 GMT

As long as you use Excel files, and have names in there which exceed the limits of SAS, you will have problems.

either use valid names (up to 32 characters, containing only letters, digits or underlines, do not start with a digit) in the spreadsheets
or save the files as text files (csv), which you can read with a DATA step you write, giving you full control over variable names and attributes (discard the header line with FIRSTOBS=2 in the INFILE statement)

The second option is preferred for repeatable, consistent results.