oWo

[JosvanderVelden]

See answer from @Tom in this thread: https://communities.sas.com/t5/SAS-Enterprise-Guide/Keep-blanks-when-exporting-to-txt/td-p/336230

[Tom]

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@bonedog wrote:

Hey! 

I have a data set in SAS that I have so that a period (.) fills all blank spaces. However, when I export my file as a .txt it randomly removes some of the periods and converts them back to blanks. How can I correct this so all the periods remain? I need the periods so another program will read my set in correctly. My code is below:

PROC EXPORT data = finalpheno
	outfile = 'X:\FlyFiles\pheno.txt' replace;
RUN;

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I don't understand what you have.  You have set your character variables in your SAS dataset to have periods replacing all of the spaces?  So a value like 'John Smith' in a 12 character variable will have 'John.Smith..' instead?

Also if you want to write a text file why are you using PROC EXPORT instead of just using a data step with a FILE statement and PUT statement?   Your code will generate a tab delimited file.  Is that what you want?

proc export data=sashelp.class(obs=3) outfile='c:\downloads\class.txt' replace;
run;

114   data _null_;
115    infile 'c:\downloads\class.txt';
116    input;
117    list;
118   run;

NOTE: The infile 'c:\downloads\class.txt' is:
      Filename=c:\downloads\class.txt,
      RECFM=V,LRECL=32767,File Size (bytes)=92,
      Last Modified=17Oct2019:12:21:52,
      Create Time=17Oct2019:12:21:09

RULE:     ----+----1----+----2----+----3----+----4----+----5----+----6----+----7----+----8----+----9----+----0

1   CHAR  Name.Sex.Age.Height.Weight 26
    ZONE  46660567046604666670566667
    NUMR  E1D59358917598597849759784

2   CHAR  Alfred.M.14.69.112.5 20
    ZONE  46676604033033033323
    NUMR  1C62549D9149699112E5

3   CHAR  Alice.F.13.56.5.84 18
    ZONE  466660403303323033
    NUMR  1C93596913956E5984

4   CHAR  Barbara.F.13.65.3.98 20
    ZONE  46766760403303323033
    NUMR  212212196913965E3998
NOTE: 4 records were read from the infile 'c:\downloads\class.txt'.
      The minimum record length was 18.
      The maximum record length was 26.

If you write you own program to generate the file you can generate it in almost any format you can imagine (and describe).

So please describe exactly, with examples, what format you have (your SAS datset) and what format you want to create (your text file).