Need to create blank coulmns with out having any spaces and periods

[ambadi007]

Dear experts,

I have a requirement from my client that need to populate a blank column but that should not be having any spaces or periods (full blank)

I know SAS can show this as either space or periods, but wanted to know is there any other soultion for this .

Thanks

Manesh

[RW9]

Erm, your question is very unclear.  This:

data want;
  a="";
run;

Creates a dataset with one emtpy variable named a (length 1).  Dots (.) are a feature of missing numerics, you can change this with options missing="";

Wouldn't recommend that though as it affects everything in the session.  Just create an emtpy string variable as above, length is irrelevant.  Cant see why spaces would matter.

[ambadi007]

Hi,

I created the variable like this a=' '; But this creating a space in the report, this gives errors while exporting the report from client system , so they need a complete blank instead of the space or periods.Thanks

[RW9]

Sorry, you will need to be far more specific - give examples (plain text in the post).  What report, what file format?  how are you creating it? If you look at the example I provided there was no space between the quote marks, in your post there is.  Remove that space.

[ambadi007]

Hi ,

I am using excel file to report it and I am exporting the file using DDE program. but for the blanks columns it should not show the space , now if I use the a="" it shows the space in the column cells , and If I use the backspace key it is removing the space. My requirement is is there any solution to remove the space. Hope now its  clear

[Tom]

Create a simple example that demonstrates the method you are using to export the data. DDE is not a normal method to use, Microsoft probably doesn't even want to support it anymore.

It is not hard to make a report with empty columns. For example a CSV file.

data _null_;
   file log dsd ;
   length var1-var3 $10;
   var1='A';
   var2=' ';
   var3='C';
   put var1-var3 ;
run;  

Reading the examples of DDE in this document http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/hostwin/63285/HTML/default/viewer.htm#ddeexamples.htm

it looks like it should be simple.

filename mydata dde 'excel|sheet1!r10c1:r20c3' notab;
data _null_; 
   file mydata dsd dlm='09'x  ;
   set mysas;
   put (_all_) (+0);
run;

[Ksharp]

proc format;
value fmt .='NA';
value $fmt ' '='NA';
run;
data x;
 x='sds';y=23;output;
 x=' ';y=34;output;
 x='dsd';y=.;output;
 format _numeric_ fmt. _character_ $fmt.;
run;
proc print;run;
run;

[Astounding]

Technically, the answer is no.  You cannot create a character variable with length zero.

Conceivably, you could assign a null value to a character variable with code along these lines:

newvar='00'x;

But that is much more likely to cause downstream problems.

[ambadi007]

Hi This is affecting all other data

[ballardw]

If you do not want anything in column C, for example, then do not write anything to column C. Write to B, Write to D but do not write to C. Then C will be "blank" as in whatever default Excel wants it.

Simple.