Add leading or trailing blanks

[june_bug]

How do I maintain the spaces when exporting to text?

[MichaelPearce]

Ah so you have 3 columns, need 173 length overall and need to maintain embedded spaces within the 3 columns.

So a small change to the example in reply 6 gives you:

data test;
  format col1-col3 $char20.;

  col1 = "no spaces";
  col2 = "no spaces";
  col3 = "no spaces";
  output;

  col1 = "  2 spaces";
  col2 = "   3 spaces";
  col3 = "    4 spaces";
  output;
run;

filename zout 'c:\testText.txt';

data _null_;
  set test;

  file zout;

  pos1 =   5 + (verify(col1,' ') - 1);
  pos2 =  50 + (verify(col2,' ') - 1);
  pos3 = 100 + (verify(col3,' ') - 1);

  put @pos1 col1 @pos2 col2 @pos3 col3 @173 ' ';
run;

filename zout;

[data_null__]

I don't think you need to do all that measuring to get @ column.  $CHAR format will preserve leading blanks.

put (col1-col3) ($char49.) @173 ' ';

[june_bug]

Hi Tom

There seems to be a space or 2 after the last character. How can I remove it or ensure that the 173 length ends at the last character.

[june_bug]

Hi

Not to worry, I sorted it!