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Aexor
Lapis Lazuli | Level 10

 

data country;
input country_ID state $ country_name $;
datalines;

1 Texas Colin
. Texas Dallas
3 . Deklab
;
run;

I have below dataset here if i am using " "  in 3rd row , I am getting lost card error but if i am using "." Which we used for numeric missing value. I am getting the o/p. Please tell me Why this is happening  

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION

Accepted Solutions
Kurt_Bremser
Super User

Since you do not use an INFILE statement with the DSD option, a sequence of delimiters (blanks) will be read as one delimiter, causing a skip to the next dataline.

 

When using the default $w. informat, a single dot will also be interpreted as a missing character value.

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3 REPLIES 3
Kurt_Bremser
Super User

Since you do not use an INFILE statement with the DSD option, a sequence of delimiters (blanks) will be read as one delimiter, causing a skip to the next dataline.

 

When using the default $w. informat, a single dot will also be interpreted as a missing character value.

Aexor
Lapis Lazuli | Level 10
Thanks !! Yes if we use infile then we can easily specify DSD .
I just wanted to confirm that while using default format for char variable we can use '.' or is there any way out for this ?
Kurt_Bremser
Super User

Whenever I need to read missing values (or values containing blanks) from datalines, I use INFILE, DSD and DLM= with a suitable delimiter (comma, pipe, ...)

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