Date:         Sun, 12 Nov 2000 20:17:36 GMT
Reply-To:     Roger Lustig <julierog@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Roger Lustig <julierog@IX.NETCOM.COM>
Subject:      Re: Data Step Question
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1

Andreas, we may be touching different parts of the same elephant!

Andreas Grueninger wrote:
>
> Roger Lustig <julierog@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> Roger's solution creates another structure of the data set as used in
> Anna's post.

Actually, I tried to get as close as possible!

> To get the same structure use the @ (or § in MVS) modifier of the
> INPUT statement.
> @ holds the line pointer in the record of the flat file.
> And remove all '#<n>' if using column based input.

I took those seriously!  If they're doing what they're supposed to,
then the INFILE will put three records into the buffer at once,
and AGE will be read from the first one, BALANCE from the second,
and SALES from the third.

> And why column based input when DSD is used?

That one had me puzzled too.

> Data one;
> infile 'e:\file10.txt' dsd truncover ;
> input  Age  1-10 balance  15-20 sales    25-30 @ ;
> OUTPUT;
> input  Age  41-50 balance  55-60 sales    65-70 ;
> OUTPUT;
> run;

That's fine if all six fields are on the same record.
The original INPUT statements, with their #<n>, imply that
the two AGE fields are on the first of three records, the
two BALANCE fields on the second, and the two SALES fields
on the third.

It so happens that the fields being
read from the three records are in non-overlapping positions,
which means that if the original program had the #<n> there
by mistake, your program does indeed do what Anna wanted,
and Anna has been getting only one-third of the data she should
have, and chopped up across records to boot.  But her comment
about having fifty variables or more makes me wonder about the
original data structure.

Anna, could you tell us a little more about those INPUT records?
Is the AGE/BALANCE/SALES information for two people/accounts/whatever
contained all on one record, or distributed across three, one account
on the left (cols 1-40), the other on the right?

[rest deleted; addresses the DSD issue]