Date:         Tue, 20 Jun 2006 17:18:42 -0400
Reply-To:     Venky Chakravarthy <swovcc@HOTMAIL.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Venky Chakravarthy <swovcc@HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: infile data with semicolon delimiter
Comments: To: momnothere@GMAIL.COM

On Tue, 20 Jun 2006 20:16:45 +0300, mom <momnothere@GMAIL.COM> wrote:

>how might I read in a file that looks like this (sas pseudocode included)
>
>data a; informat type $; infile cards DLM=";";
>cards;
>ford taurus ; mustang GTO; whatever v whatever; data wraps around like
>this; some more data; short data; very long data line here;
>;;;
>
>run;
>
>expected result
>list of type
>
>ford taurus
>mustang GTO
>whatever v whatever
>data wraps around like this
>some more data
>short data
>very long data line here

I cannot think of a better solution to this than the following. The trick
is to parse the _infile_ buffer before writing anything out. This is a
clumsy problem.

data a (keep=type);
  length type lasttype $50 ;
  retain lastsemi lasttot lasttype ;
  infile cards4 ;
  input ;
  cntsemi = length(_infile_) - length(compress(_infile_,";")) ;
  semiend = (substr(_infile_,length(_infile_),1) ^= ";") ;
  totcnt  = cntsemi - semiend ;
  do i = 1 to cntsemi ;
    if lastsemi^=lasttot
    then type = left(trim(lasttype)||" "||scan(_INFILE_,i,';')) ;
    else type = left(scan(_INFILE_,i,';')) ;
    lastsemi = lasttot ;
    output ;
  end ;
  lasttype = left(scan(_INFILE_,cntsemi+1,';')) ;
  lastsemi = semiend ;
  lasttot = totcnt ;
  cards4;
ford taurus ; mustang GTO; whatever v whatever; data wraps around like
this; some more data; short data; very long data line here;
;;;;
run;

Venky Chakravarthy