Previous examples given were not solutioned this way and for the most part directed to entirely separated data steps, so "all along" is a bit inaccurate, but I appreciate the help.  Just trying to learn on-the-fly.   Pasted code is executing perfectly to my knowledge - if there's a missing semi-colon it appears immaterial to the execution, and I can't explain that considering I've known SAS for all of an entire week.  Similarly, there's no more ENDs in my code - so I can't comment on it being missing or not, I don't know where you would like an additional END placed though.    I've pushed several million records through this over the last 2 days without a problem, and have values confirmation/validation from the financial specialist who owns the output report from this processing.  If there's something syntactically wrong I would expect some kind of errors or unpredictable execution, both of which I'm not seeing.  My ears/eyes are open for any insight though. ... View more

Coming back full-circle, I was able to get it to work the way I needed.   DATA LTAINPUT; INFILE LTAINPUT; INPUT @ 00001 RECORD_NUMBER $CHAR8. ...(many fields) @ 01662 COMPONENT_STATUS $CHAR1. ...(many additional fields) ; /*******************************************************************/ /* INACTIVE BENEFIT COMPONENT RECORDS SPLIT TO BYPASS FILE */ /*******************************************************************/ IF COMPONENT_STATUS = 'I' THEN DO; FILE LTABYPSS; PUT @ 00001 POLICY_NUMBER $CHAR8.; DELETE; END; ELSE DO; FILE LTAINPUT PUT @ 00001 RECORD_NUMBER $CHAR8. ... (many fields) ; END; ... View more

I also don't know why it's such a problem, which is why I'm asking for help.   I feel I explained enough that it should be evident what the underlying ask is - like you said this shouldn't be a problem. But, here's a recap; 2 (text)files - the second has no bearing on the ultimate process - come in from the mainframe, it changes a few fields based on criteria, and it outputs a single merged (text)file.  This merged output file does not contain the field necessary in the next step to count/summarize in the next step.  I cannot expand the output file to accommodate at this time because it has extensive impacts across dozens of other jobs which would need to be changed and tested and validated.   I want the input file with the status code to count the to write a bypass record in the new bypass (text)file when the status code is inactive.  I want the record to not be on the existing output file because the values in that file are used to calculate reserve cash, and an inactive policy does not need to reserve because the benefit is gone.  I'll count the records in the bypass file in the next step and add it to the summary page.  That's it. ... View more

Long-story short...   I'm modifying an existing report that takes hundreds of thousands of insurance policies and calculates financial reserves.  A change to a very small subset of policies now has some benefits becoming inactive - so we want to exclude them.  However, this indicator data field is only available up to this current point in the job I'm modifying, as it's output file does not contain this status code.  The next job step is the summary part, where it would be easy to count up this bypassed-due-to-inactive-status policies.  Logically the simplest solution would be to expand the output to include this field so we can just count in the next step - but it is a widely used data structure, and so would involve making changes to a couple dozen other jobs if expanded.  We don't have the bandwidth to tackle that kind of work at the moment, but we want to get these policies off the books as we're setting aside not-insignificant amounts of money that could instead be reinvested.   The goal of my process is to find the policies that don't need to have their reserves calculated, pull them out of the mainline processing (the incoming read file) and ship it to a second file.  This second file will be sent to the next job step and I'll just count the rows and slap it into the summation section for # of policies skipped due to inactive benefit component.  Fulfilling the requirement of the business now, versus in months, and not significantly impacting anything outside of this specific need.   The code I provided has the record on both files coming out of this job.   ... View more

It's part of an existing process that I'm expanding to exclude this bypass file - which is why I was attempting to use the existing reading infile processing and just shunt off the "found" records that I want to exclude.  The bypass file will be used in a next step to build a report with counts/rationale.   I don't want to mess with the existing processing too much because it'll cause a larger change than what I'm comfortable doing. ... View more

I've got it mostly working, but now the record is in both files...  I want the record to go to only the bypass file when it's found, otherwise only go to the other file (which is just the incoming file) IF COMPONENT_STATUS = 'I' THEN DO; FILE LTABYPSS; PUT @ 00001 RECORD_NUMBER $CHAR8. ; END; ELSE DO; FILE DATAIN PUT @ 00001 lots of values ... ; END;     ... View more

I do have it coming via JCL and it's named accordingly. I ended up abandoning using the FILENAME approach altogether...I don't know how to make it work that way. BYPASS DD DSN=XY.#xyz1234.TEST.DATA.BYPASS, DISP=(NEW,CATLG,DELETE),UNIT=TST1, DATACLAS=FXB080CP,LRECL=40, SPACE=(40,(1,1),RLSE),AVGREC=K ... View more

I was able to work through a couple iterations of it and got past those file-related errors. The code thus far is as follows: IF component_status = 'I' THEN DO; FILE bypass; PUT @ 00001 record $CHAR8. ; END; ELSE DO; FILE inputf PUT @ 00001 lots of fields ; END; For whatever reason the record meeting the IF criteria is still getting into the other file.  I want it just in the bypass file, and to be excluded from the data flowing in via the input file...I thought the IF condition would exclude it from going into the PUT for the other file. ... View more

Yeah - no luck. Still giving invalid error. ... View more