Processing datalines longer than 6000 characters

[playitforward]

Submitted code contains lines longer than 6000 characters. SAS is unable to process lines longer than 6000 characters. Your submission has been aborted.

important for my uses, however, are only the first 120 characters of each line anyway. Is there a way I can tell SAS to only run as many characters in a data line as it is able, and simply missover the rest?

A code sample is as follows:

options ls=250 /*NOCARDIMAGE*/;
data testing;
length reading $120.;
input reading $ &&;
cards;
[1] Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy Seymour Martin Lipset , 53, 1 (Mar., 1959), 69-105n AssociationnStable /1951731 .15:57nYour use of the archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .n/page/info/about/policies/terms.jspn .n is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofncontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsnof scholarship. For more information about , please contact support@.n .n Association is collaborating with
[2] An Economic Theory of Alliancesn Mancur Olson, Jr. and Richard Zeckhausern The Review of Economics and Statistics, 48, 3 (Aug., 1966), 266-279n The MIT PressnStable /1927082 .15:12nYour use of the archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .n/page/info/about/policies/terms.jspn .n is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofncontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsnof scholarship. For more information about , please contact support@.n .n The MIT Press is collaborating with to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Review ofn Economics and
[3] Pressure Groups and the Pattern of Tariffsn J. J. Pincusn of Political Economy, 83, 4 (Aug., 1975), 757-778n The University of Chicago PressnStable /1830398 .14:47nYour use of the archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .n/page/info/about/policies/terms.jspn .n is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofncontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsnof scholarship. For more information about , please contact support@.n .n The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with to

...

;

proc contents;

run;

Thanks for the help!

[yabwon]

Hi,

How about setting the proper length first:

length reading $ 6000;

?

All the best

Bart

[Shmuel]

In your data there are lines starting as:

[1] Some Social Requisites of Democracy: .......
[2] An Economic Theory of Alliancesn Mancur Olson,...........
[3] Pressure Groups and the Pattern of ....

are those numbers [1], [2], ... part of the data or just added for test?

Would you use '[' as a delimiter between data-lines?

On what OS is SAS installed? and what are the file attributes - block length, record length? is it a record fix length or a record variable length? 

beyond, have you tried reading the file by code like:

data want;
   infile "<path and name>" truncover ;
   input start_line $char120.;
run;

[Kurt_Bremser]

I would never swamp my code with so much data. It is much easier to keep the text in a separate text file and read it from there with a proper lrecl.

SAS has certain limits when reading code from a program file and the Enhanced Editor, see Usage Note 15883 

PS I found the Usage Note by doing a Google search for "Submitted code contains lines longer than 6000 characters"; see Maxim 6.

[playitforward]

Thank you for the tips! Helped a lot.

[ChrisNZ]

Pasting your code works fine for me.

options ls=250 /*NOCARDIMAGE*/;
data testing;
length reading $120.;
input reading $ &&;
cards;
[1] Some Social Requisites of Democracy: Economic Development and Political Legitimacy Seymour Martin Lipset , 53, 1 (Mar., 1959), 69-105n AssociationnStable /1951731 .15:57nYour use of the archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .n/page/info/about/policies/terms.jspn .n is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofncontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsnof scholarship. For more information about , please contact support@.n .n Association is collaborating with
[2] An Economic Theory of Alliancesn Mancur Olson, Jr. and Richard Zeckhausern The Review of Economics and Statistics, 48, 3 (Aug., 1966), 266-279n The MIT PressnStable /1927082 .15:12nYour use of the archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .n/page/info/about/policies/terms.jspn .n is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofncontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsnof scholarship. For more information about , please contact support@.n .n The MIT Press is collaborating with to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Review ofn Economics and
[3] Pressure Groups and the Pattern of Tariffsn J. J. Pincusn of Political Economy, 83, 4 (Aug., 1975), 757-778n The University of Chicago PressnStable /1830398 .14:47nYour use of the archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .n/page/info/about/policies/terms.jspn .n is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofncontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsnof scholarship. For more information about , please contact support@.n .n The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with to
;
proc contents;
run;

25         options ls=250 /*NOCARDIMAGE*/;
26         data testing;
27         length reading $120.;
28         input reading $ &&;
29         cards;

NOTE: The data set WORK.TESTING has 3 observations and 1 variables.
NOTE: Compressing data set WORK.TESTING increased size by 100.00 percent. 
      Compressed is 2 pages; un-compressed would require 1 pages.
NOTE: DATA statement used (Total process time):
      real time           0.00 seconds
      cpu time            0.01 seconds

[Tom · Accepted solution]

Don't do that. Why would you even think to try to do that?

Put the source text into a text file and read it from there.

In-line data is for small things that you can actually put in-line in your program.