I did not understand how datalines are read in the following program

[Jeevan007]

data nums;
    infile datalines dsd delimiter='ab';
    input X Y Z;
    datalines;
1aa2ab3
4b5bab6
7a8b9
;
run;



Output:

 The SAS System                        

                       OBS    X    Y    Z

                        1     1    .    2
                        2     4    5    .
                        3     7    8    9

[mohamed_zaki]

This example is explained here:

Example 1: Changing How Delimiters Are Treated

[Jeevan007]

I have read that. I did not understand it.

[mohamed_zaki · Accepted solution]

In the DELIMITER= statement you specify list of individual delimiters, in this example you have two individual delimiters a and b.

The question now is, What if we have two or more consecutive delimiters? You have two cases for that:

1- DELIMITER= alone
Any combination of consecutive delimiter are treated as only one delimiter. So if you deleted the statment DSD in the infile statment from your example.

In the dataset example: 1aa2ab3

will be treated as: 1 aa 2 ab 3

as if 

1,2,3

2- DELIMITER= with DSD
Consecutive delimiters are treated individually even if they are consecutive.

In the dataset example: 1aa2ab3
will be treated as: 1 a Missing a 2 a Missing b 3
as if
1, , 2, , 3

[Jeevan007]

Thanks a lot!!

[Reeza]

What part don't you understand? 

Things you should understand:

1. What are the delimiters?

2. What does the DSD option do?

Try the code with the above removed and variations on the DLM to help figure out what's going on.