Date:         Wed, 29 Apr 2009 22:22:23 -0700
Reply-To:     "Richard A. DeVenezia" <rdevenezia@WILDBLUE.NET>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         "Richard A. DeVenezia" <rdevenezia@WILDBLUE.NET>
Organization: http://groups.google.com
Subject:      Re: How to read Nth column in a file using Infile ????
Comments: To: sas-l@uga.edu
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

On Apr 28, 12:11 pm, iebup...@GMAIL.COM ("./ ADD NAME=Data _null_;")
wrote:
> Yes using the "multiplier"  makes this much easier.  I wonder if there
> would be a significant performance difference reading a small
> character (79*d)(:$1.).
>
> I think the conversion to numeric when reading external data involves
> extra processing that is not need for character data.

There is a difference, however, in my few tests I couldn't say which
is really better.  Call the ways char-dum and all-num
While reading a text file with 1M rows and 10 columns, and reading
only the fifth column, both input ways ran under 4s.  In about half
the cases the char-dum ran about 1s faster, in a quarter they were the
same and the remaining had the all-num faster by about 0.5s.

Regardless of the way, the repeater might not be in common use in your
shop, so be sure to document the bit of code.

--
Richard A. DeVenezia