Import xls file using encoding UTF-8

[J_J_J]

I'm trying to import excel file in .xls format to SAS using code:

PROC IMPORT out=WORK.test 

DATAFILE='/place/where/file.xls'
DBMS=xls REPLACE;
sheet='name';
getnames=YES;
mixed=no;
RUN;

I need to use encoding='UTF-8' to replace some symbols in different columns.

How should I write this code to get right result?

[Ksharp]

filename x '/place/where/file.xls' encoding='utf-8';


PROC IMPORT out=WORK.test 

DATAFILE=x

DBMS=xls REPLACE;
sheet='name';
getnames=YES;
mixed=no;
RUN;

[J_J_J]

Thanks, but it doesn't work. Symbols like � stay.

[Ksharp]

Then Save this xls file into CSV file . and try import again .

[andreas_lds]

---

@J_J_J wrote:

Thanks, but it doesn't work. Symbols like � stay.

---

Interesting. When importing text-files that contain unicode-chars which aren't in the active session encoding (Latin1 on our server), sas writes an error/warning to the log and removes the char from the string. I am wondering why sas inserts fancy chars when reading an excel file containing unicode chars.

[Ksharp]

Oh. I just be ware of that you need change your sas session into UTF-8 encoding as well to make � appeared.

[Shmuel]

I had similar issues when retrieving data from external origin into SAS_UE, though it is predefined with encoding='utf-8' .

I found that enlarging LENGTH of specific variables was the solution.

[J_J_J]

Thanks to everybody. None of the proposed options unfortunately helped. The problem was solved only by changing the format of the file from .xls to .xlsx, fortunately it was possible.