Date:         Mon, 22 Dec 1997 19:48:21 GMT
Reply-To:     Melvin Klassen <Klassen@UVIC.CA>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@UGA.CC.UGA.EDU>
From:         Melvin Klassen <Klassen@UVIC.CA>
Organization: University of Victoria
Subject:      Re: Negative Numbers in ASCII
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

On Mon, 22 Dec 1997 00:41:24, rrucker808@aol.com (RRucker808) wrote:
 
> I have an ASCII flat file of raw data on a Unix server.  The source for this
flat file
> is an IBM mainframe file containing packed data, some of which are negative
values.
> My question is, is there a way I can deal with these negative values
> when reading in the ASCII file with SAS?
 
SAS has been designed to handle this situation.
(Would you buy a package which couldn't handle both "credits" and
"debits" ?
Would you author such a package??)
 
> Right now, these values just looked like character strings
> (example, a negative 160 in the source file appears as a "160p" string).
 
Your data-value is "negative-1607", not "negative-160".
The '7' and the 'negative' have been combined into the 'P'.
 
Use:  { --> +0, A --> +1, B --> +2, ..., I --> +9,
and } --> -0, J --> -1, K --> -2, ..., R --> -9
as your "key" to deciphering this data-format, e.g., '2{' --> -20.
 
> Is there a SAS function or some SAS capability to deal with negative values
in ASCII?
> In the source file on the mainframe, SAS is able to determine the sign
> of a value based on a character flag (either C or D).
 
The mainframe uses the same "combining" method, rather than a "flag".
 
> I'm wondering if there's some way to do this with an ASCII file.
 
Just use the 'PDnn.' informat, and you'll get a "negative-1607" value.