Read data from fixed position txt file to SAS.
This type of file normally don’t have the variable name as the first observation because the length of the variable name might not be consistent with the length of the variable. The starting position for each variable is the same for all the records in the txt file.
Below in the admit table in fixed position txt file.
2458 Murray, W M 27 1 72 168 HIGH 85.20 2462 Almers, C F 34 . 66 152 HIGH 124.80 2501 Bonaventure, T F 31 . 61 123 LOW 149.75 2523 Johnson, R M 43 31 63 137 MOD 149.75 2539 LaMance, K M 51 4 71 158 LOW 124.80 2544 Jones, M M 29 6 76 193 HIGH 124.80
- Require . for missing value
- use $ in input statement to identify character variable
- use X-X to identify the starting position and ending position for the character variables. This also determines the length of the character variable.
- use @x to identify the starting position for the numeric variable.
- use x. to identify the length of the numeric variable. eg: @23 age 2. indicates to read from position 23 the age variable with a length of 2.
Method1: not identify the position for the numeric variable.
data admit; infile 'C:\Users\irisan\Documents\My SAS Files(32)\9.3\Tutorial\admit_fixed.txt' ; input ID $ 1-4 name $ 6-19 sex $ 21 age date height weight actlevel $ 36-39 fee; run;
Method2: identify the position for each variable.
data admit; infile 'C:\Users\irisan\Documents\My SAS Files(32)\9.3\Tutorial\admit_fixed.txt' ; input ID $ 1-4 name $ 6-19 sex $ 21 @23 age 2. /* length for age is 2 */ @26 date @29 height @32 weight actlevel $ 36-39 @41 fee ; run;
Read only certain observations that meet the criteria for selected variables from the txt file, using 2 input statements and if statement. Second input statement only contains the required variables, so not all the variables are read into the target SAS dataset.
data admit; infile 'C:\Users\irisan\Documents\My SAS Files(32)\9.3\Tutorial\admit_fixed.txt' ; input actlevel $ 36-39 @23 age @; if age < 35 and actlevel EQ 'HIGH' then delete; input name $ 6-19 sex $ 21 @29 height @32 weight @41 fee ; run;