SAS input question

[ziplok]

When inputting column data such as:

data test;
input num 1;
datalines;
2
3
4
;

only decimal points are written to my work file under variable num. Data is written corectly if I don't use the column number in the input statement.
Confused. New to SAS.

 

[klaz2002]

Decimal or dot as we sas programmers call that character, is used by the SAS system as a missing value. When you tell SAS to import the data starting at column 1, when SAS doesn't find data it puts the missing flag in its data vector. If you need to use column numbers (for what ever reason you may have) try increasing the column number. IN your example it looks like your data starts in column 7.

Hope this has helped you,
Klaz

 

[ChrisW75]

Get rid of the leading spaces in your data lines and it'll work.

Chris
Business Analyst, Code Monkey, Data Wrangler.
SAS Guru.