topic Re: I did not understand how datalines are read in the following program in SAS Programming

I did not understand how datalines are read in the following program

Jeevan007 — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 08:39:28 GMT

data nums;
    infile datalines dsd delimiter='ab';
    input X Y Z;
    datalines;
1aa2ab3
4b5bab6
7a8b9
;
run;



Output:

 The SAS System                        

                       OBS    X    Y    Z

                        1     1    .    2
                        2     4    5    .
                        3     7    8    9

Re: I did not understand how datalines are read in the following program

mohamed_zaki — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 08:55:06 GMT

This example is explained here:

Example 1: Changing How Delimiters Are Treated

Re: I did not understand how datalines are read in the following program

Jeevan007 — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 09:07:06 GMT

I have read that. I did not understand it.

Re: I did not understand how datalines are read in the following program

mohamed_zaki — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 09:27:12 GMT

In the DELIMITER= statement you specify list of individual delimiters, in this example you have two individual delimiters a and b.

The question now is, What if we have two or more consecutive delimiters? You have two cases for that:

1- DELIMITER= alone
Any combination of consecutive delimiter are treated as only one delimiter. So if you deleted the statment DSD in the infile statment from your example.

In the dataset example: 1aa2ab3

will be treated as: 1 aa 2 ab 3

as if

1,2,3

2- DELIMITER= with DSD
Consecutive delimiters are treated individually even if they are consecutive.

In the dataset example: 1aa2ab3
will be treated as: 1 a Missing a 2 a Missing b 3
as if
1, , 2, , 3

Re: I did not understand how datalines are read in the following program

Reeza — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 09:17:18 GMT

What part don't you understand?

Things you should understand:

1. What are the delimiters?

2. What does the DSD option do?

Try the code with the above removed and variations on the DLM to help figure out what's going on.

Re: I did not understand how datalines are read in the following program

Jeevan007 — Thu, 11 Feb 2016 09:57:14 GMT

Thanks a lot!!