How to import data into SAS? Last Updated : 23 Jul, 2019 Comments Improve Suggest changes Like Article Like Report Entering Data Directly: You can enter numbers of lines of data directly in SAS program by using a DATALINES statement. The keywords are as follows: DATA: The DATA step always starts with a DATA statement. The purpose of the DATA statement is to tell SAS that you are creating a new data set i.e. outdata. DATA outdata; INPUT: To define the variables used in data set. INPUT age gender $ dept obs1 obs2 obs3; Dollar sign ($): To declare variable as a character. INPUT age gender $ dept obs1 obs2 obs3; DATALINES: To refer that lines following DATALINES statement a real data. DATALINES; PROC PRINT: To display out the contents of data set in output window. proc print; RUN: The DATA step ends with a RUN statement to run the complete code. run; Example: SQL DATA outdata; INPUT age gender $ dept obs1 obs2 obs3; DATALINES; 25 M 3 17 6 24 24 F 1 19 25 7 31 F 4 24 10 20 33 M 2 19 23 8 22 M 1 14 23 12 22 F 5 1 23 9 31 M 1 8 21 7 34 M 1 7 7 14 31 F 2 2 1 22 22 F 5 20 5 2 32 M 4 21 8 18 41 M 4 7 9 25 24 M 5 10 17 20 31 F 4 21 25 7 32 M 3 9 9 5 ; proc print; run; Output: You can also use CARDS instead of DATALINES. Both means the same. There is no difference between these two keywords. Example: SQL DATA outdata; INPUT age gender $ dept obs1 obs2 obs3; CARDS; 24 F 1 19 25 7 31 F 4 24 10 20 33 M 2 19 23 8 22 M 1 14 23 12 22 F 5 1 23 9 31 M 1 8 21 7 ; proc print; run; Output Reading Delimited Data: The default delimiter is blank. If you have a data file with other delimiters such as comma or tab you need to define the delimiter before defining the variables using INFILE and DLM = options. Syntax: Infile 'file-description' dlm=', ' While using tab delimiter, the syntax would be infile 'file-description' dlm='09'x While using colon delimiter, the syntax would be infile 'file-description' dlm=':' Example: SQL DATA outdata; INFILE Datalines dlm =", "; INPUT age gender $ dept obs1 obs2 obs3; Datalines; 34, M, 1, 7, 7, 14 31, F, 2, 2, 1, 22 22, F, 5, 20, 5, 2 32, M, 4, 21, 8, 18 41, M, 4, 7, 9, 25 24, M, 5, 10, 17, 20 ; proc print; run; Output: Comment More infoAdvertise with us Next Article How to import External Data from Excel or Text file into SAS Programming? S ShubhamMaurya3 Follow Improve Article Tags : Software Engineering SAS Programming Similar Reads Importing Data in MATLAB MATLAB provides a simple way of importing data into a script using the importdata() function. This function takes various inputs and can be used in following forms. Method 1:This simply takes the data file and creates a suitable struct for the same within the script. Example 1: Matlab % MATLAB Code 2 min read How to import External Data from Excel or Text file into SAS Programming? PROC IMPORT: It is a procedure to import external files into SAS. It automates importing process. There is no need to specify the variable type and variable-length to import an external file. It supports various formats of files such as excel, txt, etc. Importing an Excel File into SAS: The main key 1 min read SAS | Date Formats and Informats Informats is used to tell SAS how to read a variable whereas Formats is used to tell SAS how to display or write values of a variable. Informats is basically used when you read in sample data which is being created using CARDS/DATALINES statement or read or import data from either an external file ( 2 min read Define Import Options for Table in MATLAB The import tool lets you import into a table or another type of data. Take into consideration reading data from the sample spreadsheet file patients.xls into MATLAB as a table. Open the file with the Import Tool, select the output format and date range, and save. After you click the Import Selection 3 min read How to Create or Modify a Variable in SAS Programming? This will help you to create or modify a variable. It is common to define a new variable based on the existing variable. Let's create a dataset In the code below, we are creating a dataset named as Example1 which is going to store on WORK(temporary) library. In this dataset, there would be a variabl 2 min read SAS | How to specify a list of Variables? Suppose you have a list of variables. You don't want to type the name of each variable every time to define them within the function or array. You are looking for a shortcut to accomplish this task. Create a dataset with a list of variables SQL data dummy; input a1 a3 a4 a2 a6$ bs$ a5; cards; 2 1 3 2 min read Like