Correctly importing numeric values that have the occassional characters

[deleted_user]

Hi, I'm importing a dataset that has 105,000 rows of data. The one column, we'll call 'X', has about 90,000 observations of numeric values and 15,000 rows of character values. If i tell it to import it as a number I get a ton of errors. The dataset I get is fine because it's them in as a missing values, I can drop them and go on with my analysis. Is there a way I can get rid of these error messages and still keep X as a numeric?

[sbb]

If you are not able to code the INPUT statement yourself (where you can introduce ?? ahead of the specified INFORMAT), consider investigating the use of the ERRORS= system option for handling this condition.

Scott Barry
SBBWorks, Inc.

SAS Language Reference: Concepts, Error Processing in SAS
http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/lrcon/61722/HTML/default/a000993436.htm