Module 2: Informats and Formats

Question 1

Define informats

Answer 1

formats in the input statement that are used to read data values from external files into standard SAS values.

Question 2

What are the 3 informats and their general forms?

Answer 2

1) Character:$informatw.
2) Numeric:informatw.d
3) Date: informatw.

Question 3

T/F: You put informats before the variable name in the input statement.

Answer 3

False: it comes after

Question 4

Fill in the blank.

When specifying a field width(w), you must count ___.

Answer 4

any special characters

Question 5

What does the commaw.d and percentw. informat do?

Answer 5

1) removes embeded commas and $
2) divides the number followed by the percent sign by 100

Question 6

What does the mmddyyw. and timew.d. informat do?

Answer 6

1) reads in dates in form mmddyy or mmddyyyy
2) reads in time data in form hh:mm:ss:ss or hh:mm

Question 7

What does the colon modifier do?

Answer 7

When placed in front of an informat, instructs SAS to read until it encounters a delimiter or the end of the data line

Question 8

What are formats?

Answer 8

Used to change how values are displayed, but do not change how they are stored.

Question 9

T/F: Format statements can go inside a data or proc step.

Answer 9

True: If in data step, format association is permanent. If in a proc step its temporary

Question 9

What does the bestw. format do?

Answer 9

SAS chooses he best format for numeric data. Default length is 12.

Question 10

What does the commaw.d, dollarw.d, and percentw.d format do?

Answer 10

1) writes numbers with commas
2) writes numbes wih $ infront and commas
3) writes numbers as percentages

Question 11

What does the mmddyyw., timew.d and worddatew. do?

Answer 11

1)writes SAS date values as mm/dd/yyyy or mm/dd/yy
2)writes SAS time values as hh:mm:ss.ss
3)writes SAS date values as month-name dd, yyyy

Question 12

Write the general code to enter data directly into SAS.

Answer 12

data name;
/input variables informats;
/datalines;
/data;
run;

bold=keywords(not made by you) /=tab over

Question 13

What is the general format for proc imports?

Answer 13

proc import datafile=name/path;
/dbms=file type;
/out=dataname;
/replace;
/guessingrows=n rows;
run;

Question 14

What do the proc import options: dbms, out, and replace do?

Answer 14

Dbms: specifies type of data to be imported (csv, xlsx, tab, dlm)
Out: specifies name of file
Replace: overwrites an existing SAS dataset with the same name specified in out

Question 15

What do the optional proc import statements do? (getnames, datarow, sheet, range)

Answer 15

Getnames: variable names generated from the first row. Default yes.
Datarow: indicates which row SAS begins to read data.
Sheet: specifies which sheet to get data
Range: specifies the uper and lower corner to get data (syntax: range=’sheetname$UL:LR’)

Question 16

What do the infile options: dlm, firstobs, obs, and dsd do?

Answer 16

Dlm: specifies the delimiter
firstobs: indicates row that data begins
obs: useful when you want to input only a few observations
dsd: ignores delimiters if they are within quotes

Question 17

What do the infile options: lrecl and truncover do?

Answer 17

lrecl: logical record length, use if longer than default 256.
truncover: forces the input statement to stop reading when it gets to the end of a short line.

Question 18

Given the following code, what will the following dataset look like.

data peeps;
input lastname $10. firstname $ height weight;
datalines;
Johnson Joe 72 165
Smith Jane 64 110
Doe John 67 125
Washington George 42 115
;
run;

Answer 18

lastname | firstname | height | weight
Johnson Jo |e|72|165
Smith Jane | 64 | 110 | .
Washington | George | 42 | 115

This is because we didn’t add a colon! before last name format ($10.)