Accessing Data

[leyla_rzazade]

Hello. I am learning SAS Programming Essentials. I have question about data formats. What does tab means in  -> dbms=tab ?

[ed_sas_member]

Hi @leyla_rzazade 

By specifying this, you indicates to SAS that your input file is a tab-delimited file, meaning each record in the table is one line of the text file and each value of a record is separated from the next by a tab character (-> tabulation key on your keyboard).

It can be seen as an alternative to the common CSV format, in which values are separated by commas or semi-colons, which can cause trouble as they are very common characters in text values.

Best,