choosing the correct delimiter using proc import

[GreggB]

what delimiter should I use for importing this .txt file?  Here is the first obs:

SCSchool District of*******         W******* High     007

[Shmuel]

The input line you demostarted seems to be without a deleimiter.

Maybe the variables are fixed length. If it is - you need know at what position each variable starts.

[GreggB]

Good point. Actually, it is fixed width now that I think about it. I have a data file layout that I used to read it in using an INFILE statement.  (see a portion below) Essentially, my task is this: I need to output the file I cleaned up so that it matches the original dirty file. If it doesn't match it, I can't import the results to our data warehouse.  Maybe I need to rethink my whole strategy here.

data access;
infile "G:\Departments\Research\test scores\ACCESS\&yr.\raw\SC3701_Summative_Stud_File.txt"
lrecl=32767 dsd missover;
input State $1-2 District $3-20 DistNum $21-35 SchName $36-53 ....;

[ballardw · Accepted solution]

Since you have an infile and input statements to read then it should be relatively easy to use a file statement that looks similar to the infilr and turn

   input State $1-2 District $3-20 DistNum $21-35 SchName $36-53 ...

into

   put @1 State @3 District @21 Distnum @21 Distnum @36 SchName ....;

The @n tells SAS to put the variable starting at that column. Assuming you haven't done anything to drastically change lengths of the values then you shouldn't have any problem.