Date:         Mon, 26 Apr 2004 10:05:12 -0700
Reply-To:     "Choate, Paul@DDS" <pchoate@DDS.CA.GOV>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Comments:     To: "Groeneveld, Jim" <jim.groeneveld@VITATRON.COM>
From:         "Choate, Paul@DDS" <pchoate@DDS.CA.GOV>
Subject:      Re: Reverse PROC CONTENTS

Interesting question Jim.  If only we could edit sashelp.vcolumns, huh?

Here's an old post by Peter Crawford that used proc datasets to do what you
want...

From: Peter Crawford (Peter@CrawfordSoftware.demon.co.uk)
Subject: Re: Fields of SAS dreams
Newsgroups: comp.soft-sys.sas
Date: 2000/07/20

hth

Paul Choate
DDS Data Extraction
(916) 654-2160

-----Original Message-----
From: Groeneveld, Jim [mailto:jim.groeneveld@VITATRON.COM]
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2004 2:17 AM
To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Q: Reverse PROC CONTENTS

Hi friends,

Maybe I'm missing something, but I am looking for some kind of reverse PROC
CONTENTS. I read ascii data and don't want to enter the metadata (variable
labels and many other attributes) by hand by writing a piece of data step
code. The information is avaliable in another ascii file, which I would like
to read using the standardized variable names from PROC CONTENTS (into a
dataset) and feed back to a (still empty) dataset, just like the CNTLIN
option with PROC FORMAT allows for importing formats from a dataset. If that
is not possible I would could read the metadata to generate normal data step
code to %include, but that is more work.

Regards - Jim.
--
  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .

Jim Groeneveld, MSc.
Biostatistician
Science Team
Vitatron B.V.
Meander 1051
6825 MJ  Arnhem
Tel: +31/0 26 376 7365
Fax: +31/0 26 376 7305
Jim.Groeneveld@Vitatron.com
www.vitatron.com

My computer remains home, but I will attend SUGI 2004.

[common disclaimer]