Without sample data, I'd say there is no fool-proof answer to your question. An approach however that comes to mind: a) do an "input @;" then count the commas in _infile_ b) do an "input var1 var2 var3 @;" and stop just ahead of the variable that may contain the unwanted comma c) do the next input statement according to the number of commas counted (ie. read one or two fields) then @ stop again d) do an input for the remaining variables This might work if what you described is the only oddity that occurs in the data. Reality however is often far more complex, so take this advice with the proverbial grain of salt. Another idea (much in Scott Barry's vein): if the immediately succeeding field (with respect to the field in question) is easily identifiable (by being either a constant or numeric value) then the SCAN function might come in handy. Regards Robert ... View more

Please read the section on Macro Quoting in and around e.g. http://support.sas.com/onlinedoc/913/getDoc/de/mcrolref.hlp/a001061290.htm ... View more

Peter is right. reone, Do you want to compare the observations with all subsequent observations? Or do you want to compare each observation with the immediately following observation only? (That was how I understood your problem, the ongoing discussion however seems to prove me wrong). Thanks for clarifying Robert ... View more

Did you see the keep= option that I added by modifying my original post? Look for "important addition" and compare the code. ... View more

You are making this way too hard. If your goal is to get rid of the print control character in column one use something like this: [pre] data _null_ ; infile report print ; file outfile noprint ; input ; put _infile_ ; run ; [/pre] ... View more

One technique that I have seen reads the input dataset twice applying some kind of "firstobs based lookahead" [pre] data _null_ ; set sashelp.class ; set sashelp.class (firstobs=2 keep=name sex rename=(name=next_name sex=next_sex)) ; if sex=next_sex then put name 'and ' next_name 'same sex' ; else put name 'and ' next_name 'different sex' ; run ; [/pre] The downside of this is that the datastep stops as soon as the last observation of the second set statement is read. A crude circumvention to this problem might be: [pre] data _null_ ; set sashelp.class ; if not end_ds2 then set sashelp.class (firstobs=2 keep=name sex rename=(name=next_name sex=next_sex)) end=end_ds2 ; if sex=next_sex then put name 'and ' next_name 'same sex' ; else put name 'and ' next_name 'different sex' ; run ; [/pre] Here you will have the values of the last observation from the second set statement carried forward by means of the retain mechanism. Bottom line: works but special care has to be taken for the last observation. Important addition: forgot to add the keep= option to the second set statement. Failing to do so causes all other variables' values to be overwritten! Message was edited by: Robert.Bardos ... View more

reone, I agree with Art and think it would be best to describe what you actually want to do. The bigger picture that is. Creating these arrays seems to be a small part of the actual problem only. While it might be possible to do what you want, it most certainly is not the best way to deal with the task at hand. Robert ... View more

Thanks Scott, as can be seen at the beginning of the thread I'm using "locale charmap" to get the info. According to "man locale" The operand name can be a category name, keyword name, or the reserved name charmap. If it is a category name, locale selects the given category and all keywords within it for output. If name is a keyword name, locale selects the given keyword and its category for output. If name is charmap, locale displays the name of the charmap used with the localedef -f option when the locale was created. I do not try to get these settings changed here as there are much bigger users of Unix System Services. All I want is to provide reliable information to SAS support and my co-workers here. ... View more

Here are the results: [pre] sas_autovar_sysscpl = z/OS sas_function_hotfix = SAS 9.1.3 Service Pack 4 sashelp_datarepname = MVS_32 sashelp_encoding = open_ed-1141 Austria/Germany (OpenEdition) sas_option_encoding = OPEN_ED-1141 sas_option_locale = GERMAN_GERMANY sas_option_nlscompatmode = NONLSCOMPATMODE unix_locale_charmap = IBM-1047 [/pre] So here I have DATAREPNAME=MVS_32. Still feeling uneasy as I read the "Conclusion" section in the document Cynthia had recommended (and which I had in print two days earlier thanks to Hans-Jürgen Baumann from SAS Heidelberg). The first point of which says: "A SAS9 release should be used with an encoded edition that matches your operating system's encoding." Great, but what if I have two different encodings in two parts of the same system? To illustrate what it means to have the non-Unix and Unix part in z/OS with a different encoding, consider this: In order to list all files in a directory having either an 's' or 'x' in their filename I could use [pre] filename unixcmd pipe "ls -l *[xs]*.gif" ; [/pre] Alternatively I could put the ls command in a script which resides within the Unix part of z/OS (in a UFS file). The filename statement could now be [pre] filename unixcmd pipe ". /u/bardos/ls.sh" ; [/pre] The command within the script file looks(*1) like this [pre] ls -l *Ýxs¨*.gif [/pre] (*1) ISPF BROWSE having the DISPLAY command for quite some time allows to display the file's contents in different encodings. Entering DISPLAY EBCDIC (or DIS CCSID 1047) allows me to see the square brackets (use DIS RESET to cancel the effect). Those sitting in front of a standard EBCDIC session may try DIS CCSID 1141 so they may get a feeling of what it's like to do development in an environment using different encodings in different parts of the same system. (So it "looks" because the emulator is set to codepage 1141). Sigh. Why can't z/OS (TSO) offer a CHCP or LOCALE command? (Rhetorical question) I guess I'll leave it at that as the whole thread's purpose was to be able to provide SAS support with upfront information based on technical resources rather than hearsay and/or notes. Thanks all Robert ... View more

8-( [sheer nonsense removed ... testing under DMS has its quirks ... should have been more careful, sorry] Message was edited by: Robert.Bardos ... View more

Based on mutual context, yes, slightly 😉 The problem can be recreated by starting with the "Search all forums" box which leads to http://support.sas.com/forums/search.jspa?q=dow . There I entered "data _null_" in the userid field which resulted in "Failed to find specified user". Searching SAS-L's archive failed similarly. Art T. suggested searching for datan which is a viable alternative. ... View more

If it's not a typo in posting to this forum change year to &year in your %if statement. Robert ... View more

Go to http://www.sascommunity.org and search for "dow". I tried to search/find samples from 'data _null_' demonstrating this technique but his(her? I don't remember) userid doesn't lend itself to do userid based searches both in these forums and in the SAS-L archive either. (@data _null_: should you read this maybe you can lend us a hand on how to search for your extremely valuable contributions 😎 ) Kind regards Robert ... View more

Thanks for the detailed reply Frank. I'll check your suggestion on Tuesday when I'll be back at the customer site. Robert ... View more

Thanks for your input Frank, I'm leaving for the weekend and won't have SAS available until Tuesday. Yet I wonder, how I would/should find the operating system's enconding there. Can you enlighten me? ... View more