BIS524 Chapter 1

Values separated by something other than blanks
How do you read data with something other than blank delimiters? Consider the following code and data (from example 2).

DATA COMMAS;  
   INFILE DATALINES DLM=',';  
   INPUT ID HEIGHT WEIGHT GENDER $ AGE;  
DATALINES;  
1,68,144,M,23  
2,78,202,M,34  
3,62,99,F,37  
4,61,101,F,45  
;  
PROC PRINT DATA=COMMAS;  
   TITLE 'Example 2.1';  
RUN;

The things to notice in this example are:
The INPUT statement is identical to example 1. Recall that the INPUT statement tells SAS how to read data fields.

A new statement has been added before the INPUT statement.
The INFILE statement tells the INPUT statement where the data file is and how the data file is structured. In this example the INFILE statement tells SAS two things:

· Look for the data file after the DATALINES (or CARDS) statement.
· Use a comma (,) as a delimiter instead of a blank.

Infile statement

INFILE fileref options;

Describes the file that will be read by the next INPUT statement executed.
fileref reserved words are DATALINES and CARDS, refer to inline data.
options include:
DLM='characters' where the delimiter characters are enclosed in quotes. You can put a tab character between the quotes to read in tab-delimited data.
DSD specifies that two consecutive delimiters imply a missing value (for example: ,,) and a delimiter may be read as a data value if it is enclosed in quotes (for example: "Washington, George")