Date:         Mon, 3 Feb 1997 17:31:00 EST
Reply-To:     "Peng, Haiou" <PENGH01@IMSINT.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>
From:         "Peng, Haiou" <PENGH01@IMSINT.COM>
Subject:      Re: Determining record length in inputs
Comments: To: Hays McLean <Hmclean@PEACH.FRUIT.COM>

Try to do this:
 
data test;
 infile '......' length=lg;
varlen=lg;
input your_var $varying200. varlen;
run;
 
You should know the maximum length of records in your file. In this case I
assume it be 200. You may need to use LRECL= options in your INFILE
statement, depending on your operating system. You can run the data step
without LRECL= option, and see what the default value is from the sas log.
If the value is less than the maximum length of the record, you need to
define your logical record length.
 
Haiou
 ----------
From: Hays McLean
To: Multiple recipients of list SAS-L
Subject: Determining record length in inputs
Date: Monday, February 03, 1997 2:55PM
 
Is there a way that SAS can predetermine the length of a record so that
the whole record can be read in as a character variable with format
$XXX. where XXX is the record length?  This would be used on variable
record length text files where each record may be different length.
 
Thanks for any help.
 
 --Hays McLean