Exporting wide data with a long header to a delimited file

[jimbo2]

I want to export a wide SAS dataset (a few thousand columns and a few hundred thousand rows) to a text file.

proc contents data=myData
out=contents(keep=name)
noprint;
run;

proc sql noprint;
	select name into :header separated by '|'
	from contents;
quit;
%put NOTE: &=header;

data _null_;
	file 'G:\myPath\output.txt' lrecl=500000 dsd dlm='|';
	set myData;
	IF _N_=1 THEN PUT "%BQUOTE(&header)";
 	put (_all_)(+0);
run;

This would work in theory, however, my header is over 32,767 characters long and is truncated. How can I modify these statements to ensure the whole header is written to the output file?

This is on SAS 9.4.

[Tom · Accepted solution]

By not using macro variables.

proc contents data=myData
out=contents(keep=name varnum)
noprint;
run;
proc sort data=contents;
  by varnum;
run;
data _null_;
  file 'G:\myPath\output.txt' lrecl=500000 dsd dlm='|';
  set contents end=eof;
  put name @ ;
  if eof then put;
run;   
data _null_;
  file 'G:\myPath\output.txt' lrecl=500000 dsd dlm='|' mod;
  set myData;
  put (_all_)(+0);
run;

[ballardw]

You may need to share which SAS system you are operating under.

It may be worth trying a FILENAME statement to create a file reference instead of using the file statement in the data step to set properties. No promise.

And did you try Proc Export by any chance?