Date:         Mon, 14 Oct 1996 08:35:00 -0700
Reply-To:     Brent Johnson <brent_johnson@CCM.SC.INTEL.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>
From:         Brent Johnson <brent_johnson@CCM.SC.INTEL.COM>
Organization: Intel Corp
Subject:      SUMMARY: MISSING statement for more than one character length??

Brent Johnson wrote:
>
> A data file I have contains missing values denoted by the two characters
> 'NA'.  I'd like to identify them as missing values before my input
> statement.  However, The MISSING statement allows only single characters
> as missing values (and 'N' or an 'A', but not 'NA').  Is there any way
> around this limitation?
 
 
Much thanks for the suggestions on the above problem.  Based on the input I
got, the two solutions that seem to
work best are...
 
1) Define all character values as missing in an informat before inputing (and
informatting) the raw data, e.g.,
 
proc format;
  invalue miss
          -99999 - 99999 = _SAME_
          other=.;
 
2) Simply read the raw data as it is, but include a ?? in the input statement
to avoid filling my log file with
input errors due to the character values ("NA") which SAS will try to read as
numeric, e.g.,
 
input x1 ??  x2 ??;
 
much thanks!!!!
 
brent johnson
Intel Corp.