topic Re: confused with use of colonmodifier with informats can anybody help? in SAS Procedures

confused with use of colonmodifier with informats can anybody help?

chaitanya — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 11:10:02 GMT

data samp ;

input id date :ddmmyy10. age$ 2.;

cards;

102 12/11/198312

103 12/11/198914

;

run;

whenever i place colon modifier before a informat, it is reading a column larger than specified width in character variables and more than that in numeric... .please clarify how sas intrepets colon modifier..

Re: confused with use of colonmodifier with informats can anybody help?

data_null__ — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 12:39:52 GMT

This is the same only different. SAS is ignoring the width specification on the numeric informat. If you want to read the data properly use formatted input for both date and age. Remove the colon.

29         data _null_;
30            infile cards column=col;
31            input id date :ddmmyy10. @;
32            put date=date. col=;
33            input age$ 2.; 
34            put age= col=;
35            list;
36         cards;

NOTE: Invalid data for date in line 37 5-16.
date=. col=18
age=  col=20
RULE:      ----+----1----+----2----+----
37         102 12/11/198312
col=20 id=102 date=. age=  _ERROR_=1 _N_=1
NOTE: Invalid data for date in line 38 5-16.
date=. col=18
age=  col=20
38         103 12/11/198914
col=20 id=103 date=. age=  _ERROR_=1 _N_=2

Re: confused with use of colonmodifier with informats can anybody help?

chaitanya — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 15:43:03 GMT

Thanks for clarifying me....i have just one more doubt.....u said that first it reads the data till the delimiter then truncates it...will it read the data into PDV and truncate afterwards? how the processing happens?

Re: confused with use of colonmodifier with informats can anybody help?

data_null__ — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 16:02:52 GMT

In the other example there is truncation because $10 defines the length of the otherwise undeclared character variable. The input statement with :$10. reads until the delimiter is found with is demonstrated by the COLUMN position. Truncation occurs when the character string is stored or written to the PDV (I suppose is a good enough way to describe it).