Date:         Mon, 3 Mar 1997 09:53:50 +0500
Reply-To:     Bernard Tremblay <bernard@CAPITALE.QC.CA>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>
From:         Bernard Tremblay <bernard@CAPITALE.QC.CA>
Subject:      Re: Raw data set

Hi,
 
        A simple way of doing this is to position the input pointer after
the first '.' and then read relatively from this position.  Example:
 
 data yourfile;
      infile "c:\strange.dat" ;
      input @1 dot $char10. @;
      pos=index(dot,'.')+1;          /*Position input cursor after dot */
      input @pos   year   4.
            +5     gnp    $char5.
            +3     consum $char6.
        ;
      drop dot pos;
run;
 
                Hope it helps,
                        Bernard Tremblay
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>>>From owner-sas-l@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU Mon Mar  3 09:39 EST 1997
>>>Mime-Version: 1.0
>>>Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>>>Date:         Mon, 3 Mar 1997 10:24:16 -0800
>>>Subject:      Re: Raw data set
>>>Comments: To: pll <pledesma@cezanne.helios.nd.edu>
>>>To: Multiple recipients of list SAS-L <SAS-L@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>
>>>
>>>pll wrote:
>>>>
>>>> I am helping a friend trying to read a strange (perhaps corrupted in
>>>> transfering from one system to another) raw data set. Every record starts
>>>> with a "."; in some lines (generally odd lines) there are 2 leading spaces
>>>> before the period; in other lines, there are 3 leading spaces. After the
>>>> period, the data is aligned in fixed columns (that is, if you counted
>>>> startng after the period). I am attaching one file similar to the one
>>>> causing problems (since that one takes a couple of MB). The positions of
>>>> the variables after the period would be:
>>>> variable    column location
>>>> ---------------------------
>>>> year            1-4
>>>> gnp            9-14
>>>> consum        17-22
>>><snip>
>>>>
>>>> Any suggestions (tried missover option in the infile statement, a couple
>>>> of informats)?  Does anyone know how to use the colun pointer controls in
>>>> the INPUT statement (specifically, is it possible to declare column 1 the
>>>> first character after the period in each line of the data file?)?
>>>>
>>>