sas macro datalines sas

Question

​

data macpro.bimodels_type;
infile datalines ;
input Model & $ model_class$ model_price model_frame$ DOpurchase;
*length Model$20. model_class$25. model_price4. ;
datalines;
Black Bora    Track        796   Aluminum  01Aug2009 
Delta Breeze  Road        400   CroMoly     23Aug2010 
Jet Stream      Track       1160  CroMoly    01Aug2009 
Mistral            Road        1995 Carbon Comp 01Jul2010 
Nor'easter      Mountain  900 Aluminum        05Jul2010 
Santa Ana      Mountain  459 Aluminum        20Jul2010 
Scirocco         Mountain  2300 Titanium        08Sep2011 
Trade Wind    Road          759 Aluminum       08Sep2011 

in Model variable i where trying to fix blank,​ i used & syntax like input Model & $ and so on... but i can't able to fix Black Bora in single column. how i can fix this.

Answer 1

You cannot change the length of a character variable after SAS has already determined what it will be. I find it much easier to get it right if I explicitly define the variables before using them in other statements.

data bimodels_type;
   infile datalines truncover ;
   length Model $20 model_class $25 model_price 8 model_frame $20 DOpurchase 8 ;
   format DOpurchase date9. ;
   input Model & model_class model_price model_frame & DOpurchase :date.;
datalines;
Black Bora    Track        796   Aluminum  01Aug2009 
Delta Breeze  Road        400   CroMoly     23Aug2010 
Jet Stream      Track       1160  CroMoly    01Aug2009 
Mistral            Road        1995 Carbon Comp 01Jul2010 
Nor'easter      Mountain  900 Aluminum        05Jul2010 
Santa Ana      Mountain  459 Aluminum        20Jul2010 
Scirocco         Mountain  2300 Titanium        08Sep2011 
Trade Wind    Road          759 Aluminum       08Sep2011 
;

For the & modifier to work you need to have at least two spaces (delimiters actually) after the value and before the next value. So in your data the fourth line is going to have a problem since there are not two spaces before the date.

You could either fix the input data.

Mistral            Road        1995 Carbon Comp  01Jul2010 

Or if you know that every record will have a date you could read it as part of the previous character variable and then take it back out.

data bimodels_type;
   infile datalines truncover ;
   length Model $20 model_class $25 model_price 8 model_frame $50 DOpurchase 8 ;
   format DOpurchase date9. ;
   input Model & model_class model_price model_frame $50.;
   DOpurchase=input(scan(model_frame,-1,' '),date11.);
   model_frame = substr(model_frame,1,length(model_frame)-9);
datalines;
Black Bora    Track        796   Aluminum  01Aug2009
Delta Breeze  Road        400   CroMoly     23Aug2010
Jet Stream      Track       1160  CroMoly    01Aug2009
Mistral            Road        1995 Carbon Comp 01Jul2010
Nor'easter      Mountain  900 Aluminum        05Jul2010
Santa Ana      Mountain  459 Aluminum        20Jul2010
Scirocco         Mountain  2300 Titanium        08Sep2011
Trade Wind    Road          759 Aluminum       08Sep2011
;

Answer 2

If you are indeed trying to wrap your code containing datalines inside a macro (as the title suggests), this won't work. Datalines/cards are statements that cannot be executed within a macro. As an alternative, you may save your datalines in a text file and read in that file, which works within macro code.