Reading in multiple input lines into one one observation and concatenating

[Sha88]

Hello 

I'm having some trouble reading in a file into SAS,  it is an ASCII carrot ^ delimited file.   The first variable contains a record type and then other data follows,   Until you get to A records where there is a second record type followed by data.   I need to read in multiple rows for each record type and concatenate them into a single variable within an observation, can this be done?   E.g. below,   I have already gotten the P, V and R lines into one observation using 'retain' and select while,  just don't know how to concat the A^A and A^B into one before inserting into one variable.  

Source File e.g.: 

P^JOHN^SMITH^26^1000101
V^VISIT 1^01DEC2019
R^RED BLOOD CELLS^10^u/ml 
A^A^COMMENTS ABOUT THIS 
A^A^TEST THAT APPEAR ON
A^A^DIFFERENT LINES
A^B^MORE COMMENTS ON A 
A^B^DIFFERENT LINE THAT 
A^B^BELONG IN A DIFFERENT
A^B^COLUMN 
R^WHITE BLOOD CELLS^22^u/ml 
A^A^COMMENTS ABOUT THIS 
A^A^TEST THAT APPEAR ON
A^A^DIFFERENT LINES
A^B^MORE COMMENTS ON A 
A^B^DIFFERENT LINE THAT 
A^B^BELONG IN A DIFFERENT
A^B^COLUMN

In SAS: 

JOHN|SMITH|26|1000101|VISIT 1|01DEC2019|RED BLOOD CELLS|10|u/ml|COMMENTS ABOUT THIS TEST THAT APPEAR ON DIFFERENT LINES|MORE COMMENTS ON A DIFFERENT LINE THAT BELONG IN A DIFFERENT COLUMN|

JOHN|SMITH|26|1000101|VISIT 1|01DEC2019|WHITE BLOOD CELLS|22|u/ml|COMMENTS ABOUT THIS TEST THAT APPEAR ON DIFFERENT LINES|MORE COMMENTS ON A DIFFERENT LINE THAT BELONG IN A DIFFERENT COLUMN|

Ideally looking to loop, during my input statement to concatenate all A^A then A^B and insert these into their own columns on the same row.  There can be any number of A_A or A_B records or there can be none. 

Thanks 🙂 

[ChrisNZ]

Use the same method (retain and while) and add something like this:

if _INFILE_=:'A^A^' then AA=catx(' ',AA,substr(_INFILE_,5)); 
if _INFILE_=:'A^B^' then AB=catx(' ',AB,substr(_INFILE_,5));

Post your code if you need more help.

[Sha88]

Hi my code below.   There are a few other fields in the A record.    The code below still outputs the comments into multiple observations. 

input @1 RECTYP $ @; 

 SELECT

 .....

 .....

.....

/*Read in Alpha Result Records*/
when(RECTYP='A') do;
input
ATXTTYP: $1. ATEXT: $1000. AALPCD: $15. AOTC: $5. ARTC: $5. ARMKCD: $10.
;
if ATXTTYP='A' then ATEXT_ST=catx(' ',ATEXT);
if ATXTTYP='B' then ATEXT_ST_B=catx(' ',ATEXT);
end;
/*Final Step - Otherwise */

.....

.....

otherwise do;

[ChrisNZ]

You are not using catx correctly.

[Sha88]

Figured.