Date:         Thu, 9 Dec 2004 07:37:39 -0500
Reply-To:     Jim Groeneveld <jim1stat@YAHOO.CO.UK>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Jim Groeneveld <jim1stat@YAHOO.CO.UK>
Subject:      Re: Why INPUT function can not change missing values to numeric
              type?
Comments: To: Fred Zhang <ieaggie2002@GMAIL.COM>

Hi Fred,

You can not change the type of a variable. PROC IMPORT apparently yields
character variables and these will remain of character type forever. You
can, however, read your data file in a normal data step, no PROC IMPORT,
forcing numerical variables, applying an INFILE statement and an INPUT
statement. Possibly the OPTION MISSING='-' statement also helps to avoid
warnings about the '-', but I have no time to test all that. Experiment
yourself.

Good luck - Jim.
--
Y. (Jim) Groeneveld, MSc., Biostatistician, Science Team
Vitatron B.V., Meander 1051, 6825 MJ  Arnhem
P.O.Box 5227, 6802 EE Arnhem, the Netherlands
Tel: +31/0 26 376 7365, Fax: +31/0 26 376 7305
Jim.Groeneveld_AT_Vitatron.com (replace _AT_ by AT sign)
http://www.vitatron.com, http://home.hccnet.nl/jim.groeneveld

On Wed, 8 Dec 2004 11:27:05 -0500, Fred <ieaggie2002@GMAIL.COM> wrote:

>Hi, all
>
>I have a simple type conversion problem as below:
>Supose my .txt data set is T1.txt:
>ProductID     Y99       Y00       Y01    Y02
>abc               10        20         15         -
>xyz               25        40         50         -
>def                10        30         -           -
>ghl                2          7           -          -
>...
>
>My SAS code is:
>PROC IMPORT DATAFILE = 'T1.txt' OUT = T1
>        DBMS = TAB REPLACE;
>RUN;
>DATA External;
>  SET External;
>  Y02=INPUT(Y02,BEST10.2);
>  Y01=INPUT(Y01,BEST10.2);
>RUN;
>PROC SQL NOPRINT;
>   SELECT name INTO:num_list separated BY " "
>   FROM dictionary.columns
>   WHERE libname="WORK" AND memname="T1" AND type="num";
>Quit;
>PROC TRANSPOSE DATA=T1 OUT = T1;
>  VAR &num_list;
>  ID ProductID;
>RUN;
>The LOG window outpus is:
>****************
>2316  DATA External;
>2317      SET External;
>2318      Y02=INPUT(Y02,BEST10.2);
>2319      Y01=INPUT(Y01,BEST10.2);
>2320  RUN;
>
>NOTE: Numeric values have been converted to character values at the
>places given by:  (Line):(Column).
>      2318:9   2319:9
>NOTE: Invalid argument to function INPUT at line 2319 column 9.
>***************
>And the transposed output table T1 is:
>_NAME_  abc    xyz   def    ghl
>Y99          10     25     10     2
>Y00          20     40     30     7
>
>I do not know why I cannot change the missing values in columns Y01 and Y02
>to be numerical values for my further use.
>
>Thanks for your correction.
>
>Fred