Why does SAS Import Procedure reveal hidden characters?

[angeliquec]

We are currently importing Excel 2007 files to SAS using SAS proc import code. We found that SAS detects hidden characters and translates these to a question mark after import. May we know how can we make SAS not detect these hidden characters and import the data as is?

For example, this field has this value in Excel:

Its not going to happen.

When it was converted to SAS, it became:

It?s not going to happen.

How can we get rid of the question mark?

[Kurt_Bremser]

Export into .csv from Excel and use a hex-capable editor to inspect the data. This might give you a clue what's happening.

Most probably you have a difficulty with UTF vs single-byte representation.

A common single quote (which I would expect to be there) will always translate properly, so I guess someone used an extended character where it is not necessary.

Programmer's heaven is a place where English is the only language, and only 96 characters/symbols are needed.