Suppose you have an external data file like the one shown below. The file, which is referenced by the fileref Creditc, contains the results of a survey on the use of credit cards by males and females in the 18-39 age range.

You need to read the data values for the following:

List input might be the easiest input style to use because, as shown in the INPUT statement below, you simply list the variable names in the same order as the corresponding raw data fields. Remember to distinguish character variables from numeric variables with dollar signs.

input Gender $ Age Bankcard FreqBank Deptcard FreqDept;

By default this input style does not specify column locations. Therefore, in order to read data using list input, the following must be true:

It is important to remember that list input causes SAS to scan the input lines for values rather than reading from specific columns. When the INPUT statement is submitted for processing, the input pointer is positioned at column 1 of the raw data file.

data sasuser.creditsurvey; 
   infile creditc;
   input Gender $ Age Bankcard FreqBank Deptcard 
         FreqDept; 
run;

SAS reads the first field until it encounters a blank space. The blank space indicates the end of the field, and the data value is assigned to the program data vector for the first variable in the INPUT statement.

Next, SAS scans the record until the next nonblank space is found, and the second value is read until another blank is encountered. Then the value is assigned to its corresponding variable in the program data vector.

This process of scanning ahead to the next nonblank column, reading the data value until a blank is encountered, and assigning the value to a variable in the program data vector continues until all of the fields have been read and values have been assigned to variables in the program data vector.

When the DATA step has finished executing, you can display the data set with the PRINT procedure. The following code produces the output below.

proc print data=sasuser.creditsurvey; 
run;

When the variable values in the raw data file are sequential and are separated by a blank (or by another delimiter), you can specify a range of variables in the INPUT statement. This is especially useful if your data contains similar variables, such as the answers to a questionnaire.

For example, the following INPUT statement creates five new numeric variables and assigns them the names Ques1, Ques2, Ques3, and so on. You can also specify a range in the VAR statement with the PROC PRINT step to list a range of specific variables.

data sasuser.phonesurvey; 
   infile phonsurv; 
   input IDnum $ Ques1-Ques5; 
run; 
proc print data=sasuser.phonesurvey; 
   var ques1-ques3; 
run;

If you specify a range of character variables, both the variable list and the $ sign must be enclosed in parentheses.

data sasuser.stores; 
   infile stordata;
   input Age (Store1-Store3) ($); 
run; 
proc print data=sasuser.stores; 
run; 

data sasuser.scores;  
   infile group3;  
   input Age (Score1-Score4) (6.); 
run;