Date:         Fri, 7 Apr 2000 22:55:53 +0100
Reply-To:     R P Bullock <{$news$}@rerun.demon.co.uk>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         R P Bullock <{$news$}@NOSPAM.DEMON.CO.UK>
Organization: ReRun Ltd
Subject:      Re: problem inputting raw data

In article <047cc049.79443197@usw-ex0105-036.remarq.com>, T. Flannery
<flannery_tNOflSPAM@hotmail.com.invalid> writes
>I hate to bother everyone with such a novice question, but I'm
>losing big patches of hair over this.  Can anyone correct my
>input statement to read the follow raw data excerpt?
>
>TIA
>
>Flannery
>
>data a;
>* infile cards missover truncover;
>input iadmtx ddmmyy10. clientid $ 12-21 @23 site $ client_i $ 25-
>32 pclient_ $ 34-42
>      birth_da ddmmyy10. client $ 55-64 @66 d12a ddmmyy10.;
>cards;
>02/06/1996 600397     2                               600397
>03/17/1997

<snip>

Flannery,

Your data didn't travel well, but assuming that it is regular, I used:

  infile cards missover;
  input     iadmtx     mmddyy10.
            clientid   $ 12-21
        @23 site         $char1.
            client_i   $ 25- 32
            pclient_   $ 34-42
        @44 birth_da   mmddyy10.
            client     $ 55-64
        @66 d12a       mmddyy10.
    ;
  cards;

The changes I made were:

.       use of 'missover' on the infile statement avoids problems where
the length of a record is less than that required by the input
statement.

.       your dates appear to be month/day/year hence I changed the date
format to mmddyy

.       having read pclient_ the input buffer column pointer is at 43,
but birth_da starts in column 44.  Added '@44'.

.       the method used to read 'site' defaulted the site variable to a
length of 8, but the structure of the file suggests that it can only be
one byte hence I added the '$char1.' format.

As your data seems to be regular in a column sense, my preference would
be to adopt a common approach to reading all of the data items.  For
example:

  input  @1 iadmtx     mmddyy10.
        @12 clientid    $char10.
        @23 site         $char1.
        @25 client_i     $char8.
        @34 pclient_     $char9.
        @44 birth_da   mmddyy10.
        @55 client      $char10.
        @66 d12a       mmddyy10.
    ;

There are many variations on this theme, but usually style helps
enormously when you cannot see the wood for the trees, as I suspect was
the case here.


Bob

--
R P Bullock