Date:         Thu, 6 Oct 2011 10:25:31 -0400
Reply-To:     Quentin McMullen <qmcmullen.sas@GMAIL.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Quentin McMullen <qmcmullen.sas@GMAIL.COM>
Subject:      Re: variable name truncation during import
Comments: To: "Data _null_," <iebupdte@gmail.com>
In-Reply-To:  <CAEZCysst9ZZPPryRA0C=Ziu4JJGaeNUdh8XA83akD0CbXKF8EQ@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Hi,

Thanks, I like that feature when importing from Excel.  Unfortunately
these data already have variable labels in SPSS, and PROC IMPORT
preserves the labels when it pulls them in.

--Q.

On Thu, Oct 6, 2011 at 10:17 AM, Data _null_; <iebupdte@gmail.com> wrote:
> Often IMPORT will make the SAS Variable Label equal to the column
> header.  What did it do for your data?
>
> On Thu, Oct 6, 2011 at 8:54 AM, Quentin McMullen
> <qmcmullen.sas@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi,
>>
>> I am importing data from SPSS to SAS, using PROC IMPORT dbms=SPSS.
>> After cleaning the data in SAS, will need to export it back to SPSS in
>> the same format.
>>
>> Unfortunately, SPSS lets variables names be longer than 32 characters.
>>  PROC IMPORT truncates them to be 32 characters during import.
>>
>> Was wondering if there is any way to have SAS create a lookup table
>> that would link the original long SPSS variable name to the truncated
>> SAS variable name.  If I could get that as a dataset, I could use it
>> to map my truncated variable names back to the insanely long names
>> after I have exported the data back to SPSS.
>>
>> Seems like at some point the ODBC driver or DBMS copy engine or
>> whatever magical middleware is doing the work knows the long variable
>> names, because the truncation is fairly intelligent.
>>
>> Is there a way to get this information from SAS?  Or do I need to
>> resort to jumping into SPSS land to write a macro there that will
>> shorten the variable names and create the lookup table before I import
>> to SAS?
>>
>> Kind Regards,
>> --Quentin
>>
>