Many thanks to those who replied to my question on how to update a flatfile in place: David Cassell, Paul Dorfman, Sean Meldrum, David Ward, and others who responded off-list.

The definitive answer was supplied by Paul Dorfman, relayed by David Ward. I won't repeat it here, but would just like to mention that there was a lot of confusion over the SHAREBUFFERS option. Many thought that this option is what enabled the update in place to occur. Mr. Dorfman points out that SHAREBUFFERS is not necessary, it just saves a bit of memory.

See the post for the details, or search the SAS online doc for "Updating External Files in Place", or see the Version 6 SAS Language manual, example 4 under the INFILE statement.

Again, many thanks to al lwho replied.

Abe

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