Date:         Thu, 15 Apr 2004 13:34:00 -0400
Reply-To:     "Frustino, Stephen" <SFrustino@COLLEGEBOARD.ORG>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         "Frustino, Stephen" <SFrustino@COLLEGEBOARD.ORG>
Subject:      PUTting a fixed width text file
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Dear colleagues,

I've been working with a number of procedures to read data from fixed width
text files in one format and writing back subsets of it into multiple fixed
width text files in a different format.  A recurring issue has been when a
variable being read in has leading blanks, it appears as left justified in
the output file.  However, those leading blanks are significant.  Sometimes
the variables also have trailing blanks.  So what I end up doing is reading
in a dummy variable that starts at the same point as the real variable that
I want to write and ends at a point in the file at which I know that there
will be a non-blank.  I then use that variable in a piece of code as
follows:

@ 903 + (min(47, (63-length(LEFT(VarDummy)))))  VarReal

It works, but it's cumbersome.  Would anyone have a better way of preserving
leading blanks when using the PUT statement?  Any suggestions would be
appreciated.  Thanks!

Stephen