input text over varying number of lines no boundaries

[mhouse]

Hello, 

Trying to read in a .txt file that stores information in sections, broken into lines like a paragraph, but the number of lines per section is unknown. There are two blank lines between each section, I really only need the first two lines from each section. Example:

1. .TXT TITLE LINE
2. Job_Code1
3. Job_script information
4. Job_description_1
5. _blank
6. _blank
7. Job_Code2
8. Job_script information
9. Job_description_1
10. Job_description_2
11. _blank
12. _blank
13. Job_Code3
14. Job_script information
15. Job_description_1

This is the code I have so far which reads by line with a line specifier, but the problem is - in this case - job_code2 spans over 4 lines while the rest spans over 3. My code is very simple and I was hoping to keep it neat, maybe using a macro to define the line specifier but I don't have much experience with macros. Any ideas? My code to read by fixed number of lines:

data want;
infile myText firstobs=2 n=5 truncover;
input Job_code $250. #2
         Job_script $250. #5;
run;

[Astounding · Accepted solution]

The easiest way is probably to crawl through line by line instead of defining a block of lines.  The INPUT logic might read:

input job_code $250.

 / job_script $250.

 / test $10.

 / test $10.;

if test > ' ' then input /;

else input;

drop test;

Of course if there are other variations, you will need to adjust again.  But that can be done ... you just need a good grasp of what is  in the data.

Good luck.

[mhouse]

This worked perfectly for my  application. Thank you so much! Thank you for the quick help too.