Proc import xlsx file, some special characters exist.

[Kendrew]

I was working on a task and just wanted to import a xlsx file.

The code is just a normal proc import step as below.

Proc import datafile = “//path” out=“want” dbms=xlsx replaces;
run;

Say there is a column (rating) and contains some varibles like “4B”, “1A”, “3C” etc.
But after running the code, It shows as “_x0034_B”, “_x0031_A”, “_x0033_C”, and this also happens on other character format columns.

And this issue only exists on a single xlsx file, all other files are worked as usual.

I was wondering if there is any error on the specific file.

Please help, many thanks.

[ballardw · Accepted solution]

If there are any notes in the LOG about "encoding" it is a good idea to copy those notes and share them on the forum.

As a personal opinion, there is no such thing as a "normal" import of XLSX files. There is so much garbage that can occur if the files are ever manually edited that way too many of them have challenges.

An alternative might be to do a Save AS CSV file format and try importing that file.