Date:         Tue, 25 Jun 1996 16:31:01 PDT
Reply-To:     TWB2%Rates%FAR@GO50.COMP.PGE.COM
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>
From:         TWB2%Rates%FAR@GO50.COMP.PGE.COM
Subject:      Re: Transforming packed decimal data into integer data
Comments: To: DGROSENB@JMU.EDU

Dana, It sounds like you have raw data, rather than a SAS dataset.  If
you are not sure, try to run PROC CONTENTS on it. If you are sure it is
not a SAS dataset, you can write a data step using an input statement to
convert it into SAS.  You will need to know the record layout to write
this input statement.  Once it is in SAS, you will not care whether the
COBOL programmer wrote it as integer or packed decimal.  You can write
it back out in the SAS format for further analysis, or re-translate it
in each job or session.  If you really want to, you can write a simple
SAS step which will read the packed decimal data and write integer
binary, so that you can process it in some other package.
 
Your e-mail address looks like a unix box.  Are you running V6.10?  Are
you sure you do not have access to the statistical procs?
 
Regarding your analysis, a few statistical procedures are included in
base SAS but most of the power is in SAS/STAT.  You can use PROC
UNIVARIATE and PROC MEANS in the base package to calculate means and
standard deviations, and PROC FREQ will calculate some simple measures
of association.
 
Tim Berryhill - Contract Programmer and General Wizard
TWB2@PGE.COM
Frequently at Pacific Gas & Electric Co., San Francisco
The correlation coefficient between their views and
my postings is slightly less than 0
----------------------[Reply - Original Message]----------------------
>I do not have access to anything other than the SAS Basic package and
>therefore cannot do my analyses.  Is there any way to transform the
>packed decimal data into integer format and save them (in integer
>format) to a new file?