Information for one observation can be spread out over several records. You can write one INPUT statement that contains line pointer controls to specify the record or records from which values are read.

The forward slash (/) line pointer control is used to read multiple records sequentially. Each time a / pointer is encountered, the input pointer advances to the next line. @n and +n are column pointer controls.

The #n line pointer control is used to read records non-sequentially. The #n specifies the absolute number of the line to which you want to move the pointer.

The INPUT statement uses the / line pointer control to move the input pointer forward from the first record to the second record, and from the second record to the third record. The / line pointer control only moves the input pointer forward and must be specified after the instructions for reading the values in the current record. You should place a semicolon only at the end of a complete INPUT statement.

The first #n line pointer control enables you to read the values for ID from the fourth record. The second #n line pointer control moves back to the first record and reads the values for Fname and Lname. You can use formatted input, column input, or list input to read the values for ID.

The first time the DATA step executes, the first three records are read, and an observation is written to the data set. During the second iteration, the next three records are read, and the second observation is written to the data set. During the third iteration, the last three records are read, and the final observation is written to the data set.

A combination of modified and simple list input can be used to read the values for City, State, and Zip. You need to use modified list input to read the values for City, because one of the values is longer than eight characters and contains an embedded blank. You cannot use formatted input, because the values do not begin and end in the same column in each record.

The values for Item in the first record are read, and then the following / or #n line pointer control advances the input pointer to the second record to read the values for Inventory and Type.

You can use either the / or #n line pointer control to advance the input pointer to the second line, in order to read the values for Department and Salary. The colon (:) modifier is used to read the character values that are longer than eight characters (Department) and the nonstandard data values (Salary).

The third raw data file does not contain the same number of records for each observation, so the output from this data set will show invalid data for the ID and salary information in the fourth line.