Datalines statement help

[sarahbrannan]

Hi there! I have to create a dataset, but one data point is weird (>36). The variable is supposed to be numeric, and I'm not sure how to do that. It keeps coming up as missing when I run it as is. This is the code I've been running: 

DATA filename;

INPUT age class $;

Datalines;

13 B

18 C

>36 A

21 B

;

Run;

I would love any help you could give me! Thank you!

[ChrisNZ]

What do you want instead of missing?

The best way is probably to read it as character and clean it.

[s_lassen]

As @ChrisNZ wrote, one option is to read the variable as character and then clean it.

If you are absolutely sure that you do not have any ">" characters anywhere else, the fast and dirty solution can be to add it as a delimiter:

DATA filename;
  infile datalines delimiter=' >';
  INPUT age class $;
Datalines;
13 B
18 C
>36 A
21 B
;
Run;

Another quick fix is to modify the infile buffer:

DATA filename;
  input @;
  if _infile_=:'>' then
    _infile_=substr(_infile_,2);
  INPUT age class $;
Datalines;
13 B
18 C
>36 A
21 B
;
Run;

[Kurt_Bremser]

This is not a programmatical, but a design question: what does ">36" mean? If you want that column to be numeric, you have to lay down a rule that tells you to what discrete number any ">dd" (d = digit) string has to be converted. If you could simply say that such strings should result in a missing numerical value, the solution could be quite easy.