Max:

Yes it's "sloppy", and not the only example.

That's why SAS should be viewed as a tool that looks a lot like a language. It's a successful approach as long as the tool is useful and flexible. IMO, SAS is both and, generally speaking, becoming more so.

Regards, Mark

> -----Original Message----- > From: SAS(r) Discussion [mailto:SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of > bbser2009 > Sent: Friday, November 26, 2010 2:02 PM > To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: $varying9. and strange input statement > > Art and Jack > > Consider two input statements to read the character data value > 3sunfish: > 1. input x 1. name $varying9. x; > 2. input x 2. name $9. x; > > As you mentioned, > 1) in the first input statement, SAS treats the second x as the d > value, > namely, the decimal part of the informat $varying9. > 2) But for the second input statement, SAS seemly tries to read another > numeric value for the second x, so we actually ended up with a missing > value > for x in the output. > > This is really a sloppy grammar. Any comments, please? > > Max > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Jack F. Hamilton [mailto:jfh@alumni.stanford.org] > Sent: November-26-10 1:22 PM > To: bbser2009 > Cc: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU > Subject: Re: [SAS-L] $varying9. and strange input statement > > The example you show below is straight out of the documentation: > > > <http://support.sas.com/onlinedoc/913/getDoc/en/lrdict.hlp/a000193602.h > tm> > > You should send email to support@sas.com asking them to improve the > documentation if you don't think it's sufficient. I agree that the > documentation is a bit murky, but working through the two examples > should > make it clear. > > "input x 1." reads "3" from the input line and stores it as the number > 3 in > the variable X. > > "name $varying9. x" reads the next portion of the input line into > variable > NAME. How much does it read? The number of characters specified in > variable X. You just set the value of X to 3, so it reads 3 > characters. If > x equals 3, then "$varying9. x" reads 3 characters. If x equals 8, > "$varying9. x" reads 8 characters. > > > > > On Nov 26, 2010, at 9:55 , bbser2009 wrote: > > > Here are two questions about the code below: > > 1. Why the value for the variable name is the string "sun" instead of > > "sunfish"? > > 2. What's the purpose for listing the second x in the input > statement? > > > > Thanks. Max > > > > data temp; > > input x 1. name $varying9. x; > > cards; > > 3sunfish > > ; > > proc print; > > run; > > > > Result of this code: > > > > obs x name > > 1 3 sun