topic Re: How to import delimited text file with comment lines using PROC IMPORT? in SAS Procedures

How to import delimited text file with comment lines using PROC IMPORT?

sy2011 — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 19:04:39 GMT

Hi,

Can I use PROC IMPORT to import delimited text file which contains a lots of comment lines at the beginning of the file. The comment lines are marked with "#"s. I want to exclude the comment lines and start to import at the header line.

Thanks.

sy

Re: How to import delimited text file with comment lines using PROC IMPORT?

ballardw — Mon, 11 Apr 2011 21:57:05 GMT

Single input file or multiple input files with varying numbers of comment lines?

Re: How to import delimited text file with comment lines using PROC IMPORT?

Ksharp — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 03:42:53 GMT

It seems that proc import cann't do it, But Import Data Wizard in sas menu can choose the start row of data. Maybe it is not what you want.

Ksharp

Re: How to import delimited text file with comment lines using PROC IMPORT?

DBailey — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 11:47:55 GMT

You could always fall back and write your own data step to check the first character of the line before parsing and outputting the data set.

Re: How to import delimited text file with comment lines using PROC IMPORT?

sss — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 12:34:57 GMT

HI
I am not sure about the wizard but you can do by code

data dataset_name;
infile 'path\file.txt' dlm='#&*';
input var1$ var2 ;
run;

Re: How to import delimited text file with comment lines using PROC IMPORT?

sy2011 — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 17:41:41 GMT

I've resolved the problem. Thank you for your reply.

Re: How to import delimited text file with comment lines using PROC IMPORT?

sy2011 — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 17:47:47 GMT

Thank you for all your replies. I've resolved the problem by using DBailey's approach, i.e., I used substr( ) to delete the lines with #s in the DATA step.