topic Re: DATALINES with long strings in SAS Programming

DATALINES with long strings

cottons23 — Thu, 18 Apr 2024 16:50:36 GMT

Hi all,

I have a situation where I need to create a dataset with some long free text. Is there a way to force SAS to read the below correctly beyond the 80th column? Works well if PARAMETER was limited to 80th column, beyond that it gets messed up. Also, MISSOVER option didn't solve the issue. Output of below code shown below.

data test;

/* infile datalines missover;*/

input ord 1-2 _NAME_ $ 4-5 PARAMETER $ 7-185;

cards;

1 A text here text here

2 B text here text here text here text here text here text here

3 C text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here

4 D text here

;

Thanks!

Re: DATALINES with long strings

Kurt_Bremser — Thu, 18 Apr 2024 18:44:46 GMT

Add

infile datalines truncover;

to override the default FLOWOVER option.

Re: DATALINES with long strings

Ksharp — Fri, 19 Apr 2024 03:13:58 GMT

I got no problem with your code.

But you could also try this alternative code .



options parmcards=x;
filename x temp;
parmcards;
1  A  text here text here 
2  B  text here text here text here text here text here text here 
3  C  text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here text here xx
4  D  text here
;

data test;
infile x lrecl=32767 truncover;
input ord 1-2 _NAME_ $ 4-5 PARAMETER $ 7-200;
run;

Re: DATALINES with long strings

Tom — Fri, 19 Apr 2024 04:11:06 GMT

That is because there are very few situations where you ever would want to use the ancient MISSOVER option.

Instead you should always use the modern (probably more than 30 years old) TRUNCOVER option when you don't want the default FLOWOVER option.

The reason you would use MISSOVER in this situation is when you want SAS to IGNORE anything in columns 7 to 185 that does not completely fill all 179 bytes with something. And since in-line data is padded to use the next multiple of 80 bytes that means that to avoid losing data when using MISSOVER with your code each line would have to have at least 161 bytes.

Re: DATALINES with long strings

cottons23 — Fri, 19 Apr 2024 11:20:18 GMT

Perfect, than you!

Re: DATALINES with long strings

cottons23 — Fri, 19 Apr 2024 11:21:43 GMT

Thanks this also fixes my problem

Re: DATALINES with long strings

cottons23 — Sun, 19 May 2024 20:11:20 GMT

Many thanks for that explanation! 🙂