What is the difference between Missover and Truncover?

[Kurt_Bremser]

missover sets a variable where not enough data is present to missing, while truncover reads what's available:

data _null_;
file '$HOME/test.txt';
input testvar $10.;
put testvar;
cards;
1234567890
1234
;
run;

data test1;
infile '$HOME/test.txt' missover;
input testvar $10.;
run;

data test2;
infile '$HOME/test.txt' truncover;
input testvar $10.;
run;

In test1, testvar will be empty for the second observation, while in test2, it gets the "1234".

truncover is newer and preferred.

[RW9]

There are papers on this:

https://support.sas.com/resources/papers/proceedings/proceedings/sugi26/p009-26.pdf

Other people have asked the same question:

https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Programming/What-is-the-difference-between-Missover-and-Truncover...

Plus plenty of other material on a quick Google search which should answer this question.