Date:         Wed, 19 Sep 2007 16:13:17 -0000
Reply-To:     Perry <jasper6294@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Perry <jasper6294@GMAIL.COM>
Organization: http://groups.google.com
Subject:      Re: length option in the infile statement??
Comments: To: sas-l@uga.edu
In-Reply-To:  <1190217916.713121.186300@19g2000hsx.googlegroups.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

What, specifically, is your goal? Perhaps you do need the length=
option, but from your example I can't tell why.

>From the docs... "names a variable that SAS sets to the length of the
current input line. SAS does not assign the variable a value until an
INPUT statement executes. Like automatic variables, the LENGTH=
variable is not written to the data set. "

If you could describe the situation a little more, I'm sure that many
solutions to your problem will be offered quite quickly.


On Sep 19, 12:05 pm, adac1...@gmail.com wrote:
> May I know can we use length= in the infile statement? and what is
> value we are expecting to use for?
>
> filename in '/home/tst.lst';
> data tmp;
> infile in length=linel;
> input xname $5. linel;
>
> ( tst.lst looked like this
> name1
> name2
> name3
> name4
> )
>
> I tested but came out the linexx value were shown . (missing) except
> the last observation- linexx=0 and error encountere
>
> log msg:
> linel=. xname=name1 _ERROR_=1 _N_=1
> linel=. xname=name2 _ERROR_=1 _N_=2
> linel=. xname=name3 _ERROR_=1 _N_=3
> inel=0 xname=name4 _ERROR_=1 _N_=4
>
> why the last observation with linexx=0?
>
> Thanks,