topic NOTE : Invalid Argument to function Input in SAS Programming

NOTE : Invalid Argument to function Input

Son_Of_Krypton — Thu, 04 Apr 2024 07:51:33 GMT

I have the below dataset which contains both character and numeric data as shown below :

data example;
length Var1 $10.;
input Var1 $;
datalines;
AB
CD
100
400
;
run;

Trying to output result by using input function shown below:

data cleaned_data;
set example;
Result = put(input(Var1, best3.), z3.);
run;

But after running this getting note :

NOTE: Invalid argument to function INPUT at line 90 column 18.

Var1=AB Result=. _ERROR_=1 _N_=1

NOTE: Invalid argument to function INPUT at line 90 column 18.

Var1=CD Result=. _ERROR_=1 _N_=2

NOTE: Mathematical operations could not be performed at the following places. The results of the operations have been set to

missing values.

Each place is given by: (Number of times) at (Line):(Column).

2 at 90:18

So what can be done to get rid of this issue. Can anyone help please....

Re: NOTE : Invalid Argument to function Input

Patrick — Thu, 04 Apr 2024 08:29:08 GMT

Does below return what you're after?

data example;
  input var1 :$10.;
  datalines;
AB
CD
1.5
400
5
;
run;

data cleaned_data;
  set example;
  if notdigit(strip(var1)) then result=var1;
  else result=put(input(var1, ?? best32.), z3.);
run;

proc print data=cleaned_data;
run;

Re: NOTE : Invalid Argument to function Input

DrAbhijeetSafai — Fri, 11 Apr 2025 10:11:31 GMT

@Patrick , thanks!

Use of ?? before format is really useful. At least is was useful to me when there was some data issue. Seems that there were some characters which looked same (Week 12) to eyes but which were different in reality. Anyhow, use of ?? worked for me.

Thank you.

-- Dr. Abhijeet Safai

Re: NOTE : Invalid Argument to function Input

ballardw — Fri, 11 Apr 2025 16:15:02 GMT

What specific numeric values do you expect to be output for the strings "AB" and "CD"?