Date:         Thu, 17 Apr 2008 23:31:36 -0400
Reply-To:     "Howard Schreier <hs AT dc-sug DOT org>"
              <schreier.junk.mail@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         "Howard Schreier <hs AT dc-sug DOT org>"
              <schreier.junk.mail@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: how to control the number of observations reading in by using
              PROC IMPORT?

On Thu, 17 Apr 2008 12:06:18 -0700, Xuhong <zhuxuhong2000@GMAIL.COM> wrote:

>Hello folks,
>
>Part of my work needs to read large raw data from .dbf file. Is there
>a method to read, say first 100 observations, from the .dbf file when
>I am using the PROC IMPORT? If I could get the variable names and its
>attributes before I read in the whole dataset, it will save me lots of
>time!
>
>PROC IMPORT OUT=temp
>            DATAFILE= "O:\example.dbf"
>            DBMS=DBF REPLACE;
>     GETDELETED=NO;
>RUN;
>
>Thanks very much!
>Xuhong

I would get a hold of Richard Hockey's venerable DBF2SAS macro and tweak it.