If for some reason you don't want the DSD behavior regarding consecutive delimiters, the $QUOTE informat will do it:

data _null_; infile cards dlm=','; input (v1-v5)(:$quote40.); put _infile_ / (v1-v5) (=); cards;

But how come this method will fail to strip quotes if there is a space between the comma (or the beginning of the line) and the opending quote, but Jack's method does ot have that weakness?

On Thu, 18 Mar 2004 17:46:07 -0700, Jack Hamilton <JackHamilton@FIRSTHEALTH.COM> wrote:

>See the DSD option on the INFILE statement. > >===== >data _null_; > infile cards dsd; > length v1-v5 $40.; > input v1-v5; > put _infile_ / (v1-v5) (=); >cards; >"69 DEWEY AVE","","NEWBURY PARK","CA","91320" >;;;; >===== > >produces > >===== >24 data _null_; >25 infile cards dsd; >26 length v1-v5 $40.; >27 input v1-v5; >28 put _infile_ / (v1-v5) (=); >29 cards; > >"69 DEWEY AVE","","NEWBURY PARK","CA","91320" >v1=69 DEWEY AVE v2= v3=NEWBURY PARK v4=CA v5=91320 >NOTE: DATA statement used: > real time 0.03 seconds > cpu time 0.00 seconds >===== > > >-- >JackHamilton@FirstHealth.com >Manager, Technical Development >Metrics Department, First Health >West Sacramento, California USA > >>>> "0101 htns" <htns0101@YAHOO.COM> 03/18/2004 4:30 PM >>> >Dear SAS-Lers, > >Any help on how to read the line below into sas would be greatly >appreciated. I can read it in if it doesn't have the double quotes. > >"69 DEWEY AVE","","NEWBURY PARK","CA","91320" > >expected result (v2 has missing value) > >v1 v2 v3 >v4 v5 > >69 DEWEY AVE NEWBURY PARK CA 91320 > >TIA > >Huong > > >Do you Yahoo!? >Yahoo! Mail - More reliable, more storage, less spam