topic Re: Error, IML Symbol Name in SAS/IML Software and Matrix Computations

Error, IML Symbol Name

jl1005 — Wed, 12 Apr 2017 01:24:44 GMT

Hi,

I'm simply trying to read an existing dataset into a matrix, but keep recieving the same error, that I can't fix.

The message is: ERROR: A dataset field name is not a valid IML symbol name.

Here's the code:

proc iml;
use points;
	read all var _ALL_ into runs;
	close points;
	print runs;

What's triggering the error?

Re: Error, IML Symbol Name

PeterClemmensen — Wed, 12 Apr 2017 06:20:35 GMT

Your code seems to be working fine as below, so my guess is that one of your column names are conflicting with SAS standards.

Can you post some sample of the data you are trying to read?

data points;
input ID point;
datalines;
1 100
2 200
3 300
;

proc iml;
use points;
	read all var _ALL_ into runs;
close points;

print runs;
quit;

Re: Error, IML Symbol Name

jl1005 — Wed, 12 Apr 2017 12:06:26 GMT

Here'sa a picture. I don't need the first column. Would it be because that coumn names are numeric?

Re: Error, IML Symbol Name

Rick_SAS — Wed, 12 Apr 2017 12:13:31 GMT

The USE statement in SAS/IML reads data from a SAS data set. Valid variable names in SAS begins with a letter or an underscore. In your data, try using variable names such as X0_0, X0_1, etc. How did you create this data set?

Re: Error, IML Symbol Name

jl1005 — Wed, 12 Apr 2017 12:20:16 GMT

The dataset was imported from an excel worksheet. I renamed the columns so they begin with a letter, and it works. Thank you.