How do I import txt file that is both delimited and has next lines i need for a column

[Machan69]

Hello, I think I posted same question before but not sure where my topic went. I'm a new sas user using sas studio, I hope you can help me with my journey.

Q:I was looking to create a sas data set with 3 columns: name,gender,age from this text file that looks like the one below. I'm having trouble because it's not just delimited but some of the columns i need is all in one column in the txt file. whenever i do the proc import step i get a data set with column name with everything under it.

mark
m_21
ash
m_18
bumi
f_36
bambam
f_36
bacon
f_23
bona
f_23
bingo
m_36
lena
f_18

[Tom · Accepted solution]

"Import" is the wrong verb for the action you need to do.  You just need to READ the text file.

Let's take your sample lines and convert it to a file so we have something to code against.

options parmcards=text ;
filename text temp;
parmcards;
mark
m_21
ash
m_18
bumi
f_36
bambam
f_36
bacon
f_23
bona
f_23
bingo
m_36
lena
f_18
;

Now let's write a data step that will read NAME from one line and GENDER and AGE from the next.

data want;
  infile text dlm='_' truncover ;
  input name $30.  / gender :$1. age ;
run;

Results: