Date:         Mon, 1 Feb 2010 21:28:43 -0500
Reply-To:     Arthur Tabachneck <art297@NETSCAPE.NET>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Arthur Tabachneck <art297@NETSCAPE.NET>
Subject:      Re: Format Modifier Behavior
Comments: To: Jonathan Goldberg <jgoldberg@BIOMEDSYS.COM>

Jonathan,

The following appeared to work perfectly for me with 9.1.3 (on Windows
Server 2003):

data have;
  length comment $ 85;
  input comment &;
  cards;
Junctional Rhythm 45-64 bpm
Junctional Bradycardia < 45 bpm
Junctional Tachycardia 65-100 bpm
Atrial Flutter
;

Art
-------
On Mon, 1 Feb 2010 17:25:52 -0500, Jonathan Goldberg
<jgoldberg@BIOMEDSYS.COM> wrote:

>I am reaing a character value name "comment" defined this way:
>
>length comment $ 85;
>
>Comments look like this:
>
>Junctional Rhythm 45-64 bpm
>Junctional Bradycardia < 45 bpm
>Junctional Tachycardia 65-100 bpm
>Atrial Flutter
>
>I read them this way:
>
>input comment &;
>
>The & was to tell SAS to include spaces in the values, so as not
>to truncate the input after the first word.
>It turned out that doing this resulted in unprintable characters
>being appended to the data values where there happened to be space
>on the data line after the value.
>
>Changing the input statement to:
>
>input comment &$;
>
>fixed the problem.
>Having looked over the documentation for the input and infile statements
>(the infile was "infile datalines truncover length = ll;")
>I can't figure out why the fix fixed.  Any insights?
>
>TIA.
>
>Jonathan