topic Re: Need to create blank coulmns with out having any spaces and periods in SAS Programming

Need to create blank coulmns with out having any spaces and periods

ambadi007 — Tue, 04 Apr 2017 09:11:20 GMT

Dear experts,

I have a requirement from my client that need to populate a blank column but that should not be having any spaces or periods (full blank)

I know SAS can show this as either space or periods, but wanted to know is there any other soultion for this .

Thanks

Manesh

Re: Need to create blank coulmns with out having any spaces and periods

RW9 — Tue, 04 Apr 2017 09:57:40 GMT

Erm, your question is very unclear. This:

data want;
  a="";
run;

Creates a dataset with one emtpy variable named a (length 1). Dots (.) are a feature of missing numerics, you can change this with options missing="";

Wouldn't recommend that though as it affects everything in the session. Just create an emtpy string variable as above, length is irrelevant. Cant see why spaces would matter.

Re: Need to create blank coulmns with out having any spaces and periods

Ksharp — Tue, 04 Apr 2017 10:14:24 GMT

proc format;
value fmt .='NA';
value $fmt ' '='NA';
run;
data x;
 x='sds';y=23;output;
 x=' ';y=34;output;
 x='dsd';y=.;output;
 format _numeric_ fmt. _character_ $fmt.;
run;
proc print;run;
run;

Re: Need to create blank coulmns with out having any spaces and periods

ambadi007 — Tue, 04 Apr 2017 10:25:57 GMT

Hi,

I created the variable like this a=' '; But this creating a space in the report, this gives errors while exporting the report from client system , so they need a complete blank instead of the space or periods.Thanks

Re: Need to create blank coulmns with out having any spaces and periods

RW9 — Tue, 04 Apr 2017 10:30:47 GMT

Sorry, you will need to be far more specific - give examples (plain text in the post). What report, what file format? how are you creating it? If you look at the example I provided there was no space between the quote marks, in your post there is. Remove that space.

Re: Need to create blank coulmns with out having any spaces and periods

Astounding — Tue, 04 Apr 2017 10:32:26 GMT

Technically, the answer is no. You cannot create a character variable with length zero.

Conceivably, you could assign a null value to a character variable with code along these lines:

newvar='00'x;

But that is much more likely to cause downstream problems.

Re: Need to create blank coulmns with out having any spaces and periods

ambadi007 — Tue, 04 Apr 2017 12:42:27 GMT

Hi This is affecting all other data

Re: Need to create blank coulmns with out having any spaces and periods

ambadi007 — Tue, 04 Apr 2017 13:09:21 GMT

Hi ,

I am using excel file to report it and I am exporting the file using DDE program. but for the blanks columns it should not show the space , now if I use the a="" it shows the space in the column cells , and If I use the backspace key it is removing the space. My requirement is is there any solution to remove the space. Hope now its clear

Re: Need to create blank coulmns with out having any spaces and periods

Tom — Tue, 04 Apr 2017 13:33:21 GMT

Create a simple example that demonstrates the method you are using to export the data. DDE is not a normal method to use, Microsoft probably doesn't even want to support it anymore.

It is not hard to make a report with empty columns. For example a CSV file.

data _null_;
   file log dsd ;
   length var1-var3 $10;
   var1='A';
   var2=' ';
   var3='C';
   put var1-var3 ;
run;

Reading the examples of DDE in this document http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/hostwin/63285/HTML/default/viewer.htm#ddeexamples.htm

it looks like it should be simple.

filename mydata dde 'excel|sheet1!r10c1:r20c3' notab;
data _null_; 
   file mydata dsd dlm='09'x  ;
   set mysas;
   put (_all_) (+0);
run;

Re: Need to create blank coulmns with out having any spaces and periods

ballardw — Tue, 04 Apr 2017 14:21:29 GMT

If you do not want anything in column C, for example, then do not write anything to column C. Write to B, Write to D but do not write to C. Then C will be "blank" as in whatever default Excel wants it.

Simple.