SAS Certification Prep Guide: Base Programming for SAS 9, Third Edition

Reading Instream Data

Overview

Throughout this chapter, our program has contained an INFILE statement that identifies an external file to read.

data sasuser.stress; 
   infile tests; 
   input ID $ 1-4 Name $ 6-25 RestHR 27-29 MaxHR 31-33 
         RecHR 35-37 TimeMin 39-40 TimeSec 42-43 
         Tolerance $ 45; 
    if tolerance='D'; 
    TotalTime=(timemin*60)+timesec;
 run;

However, you can also read instream data lines that you enter directly in your SAS program, rather than data that is stored in an external file. Reading instream data is extremely helpful if you want to create data and test your programming statements on a few observations that you can specify according to your needs.

To read instream data, you use

• a DATALINES statement as the last statement in ...