This is an example of using Line-Pointer Control to read multiple records like your code, to create a Single Observation containing variables Name , Address, City , State ideally. Since you requested a drop for city , you will have only three variables - Name , Address and State This / reads only one dataline field as a new record, each time, into the input buffer. So it reads Name first then reads next Address record still considered as the same observation followed by City and then State. Now my question is do you have spaces before and after each record in the dataline? Whatever be the case, I have illustarted an example showing the possible cases. I assume Case 1 is what you are looking for. Case 1: Without Spaces (recommended) It will read Name(Joe Coneley) first. Since there is a / after name ,it reads next record Address(123 Main St). The / after Address will read the next record City (Janesville). Since there is a drop for City , it will dropped in the dataset. Since you have another input statement in the IF-THEN condition , it is same as a / and will read State. it will not give a value for State since the City requested is New York . But your first observation has City = Janesville. Hence no value for State. Your second observation has City=New York , hence State has a value of NY. Without spaces and drop City Without spaces and keep City Obs Name Address State Obs Name Address City State 1 Joe Conley 123 Main St 1 Joe Conley 123 Main St Janesville 2 Jane Ngyuen 555 Alpha Ave NY 2 Jane Ngyuen 555 Alpha Ave New York NY 3 Jennifer Jason 666 Mt Diablo 3 Jennifer Jason 666 Mt Diablo Eureka Case 2: With spaces ( not the result you want) It will read first record which is a blank, hence Name is a blank. Since there is a / after name ,it reads next record Address but the records shows value (Joe Coneley). The / after Address will read the next record City which is a blank. Since there is a drop for City , it will dropped in the dataset. Since you have another input statement in the IF-THEN condition , it is same as a / and will read State. it will not give a value for state since the City requested is New York . But your first observation has a blank value for City and does not satisfy the IF condition. Hence no value for State. this gives 1st observation Follow this order for observation 2 and 3. With spaces and drop City With spaces and keep City Obs Name Address State Obs Name Address City State 1 Joe Conley 1 Joe Conley 2 Janesville 2 Janesville 3 Jane Ngyuen 3 Jane Ngyuen 4 New York 4 New York 5 Jennifer Jason 5 Jennifer Jason 6 Eureka 6 Eureka You can also refer: http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/basess/58133/HTML/default/viewer.htm#a002001051.htm Hope this helps!
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