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SAS FAQ 
How do I write out a file that uses commas, tabs or spaces as delimiters to separate variables in SAS version 8?

Comma-separated files

It is quite easy to read a file that uses a comma as a delimiter using proc export in SAS version 8. There are two slightly different ways of writing out a comma delimited file using proc export. A comma delimited file can be considered as a special type of external file with extension .csv whish stands for comma-separated-variables. We show here the first sample program making use of this feature. Let's say we have following data stored SAS that we want to output it to a comma delimited file called mydata.csv.

 Obs    MAKE                        MPG          WEIGHT           PRICE
  1     AMC Concrod                  22            2930            4099
  2     AMC Pacer                    17            3350            4749
  3     AMC Sprint                   22            2640            3799
  4     Buick Century                22            3250            4816
  5     Buick Electra                15            4080            7827

Then the following program will output it into a tab delimited data file called tab2.txt in the directory "c:\dissertation".

 proc export data=mydata outfile='c:\dissertation\mydata.csv' dbms=csv replace;
 run;

Another way of writing a tab delimited file is to consider a comma as an ordinary delimiter. Here is a program that shows how to use the delimiter option to write out a file just like we did above. Now we can save it just as a text file.

 proc export data=mydata outfile='c:\dissertation\mydata.txt' dbms=dlm replace;
   delimiter=",";
 run;

Tab-delimited files

It is quite easy to read a file that uses a tab as a delimiter using proc export in SAS version 8. There are two slightly different ways of writing out a tab delimited file using proc export. In SAS version 8, a tab delimited file can be considered as a special type of external file. We show here the first sample program making use of this feature. Let's say we have following data stored SAS that we want to output to a tab delimited file called tab2.txt.

 Obs    MAKE                        MPG          WEIGHT           PRICE
  1     AMC Concrod                  22            2930            4099
  2     AMC Pacer                    17            3350            4749
  3     AMC Sprint                   22            2640            3799
  4     Buick Century                22            3250            4816
  5     Buick Electra                15            4080            7827

Then the following program will output it into a tab delimited data file called tab2.txt in the directory "c:\dissertation".

proc export data=mydata outfile='c:\dissertation\tab2.txt' dbms=tab replace;
run;

Another way of writing a tab delimited file is to consider a tab as an ordinary delimiter. Here is a program that shows how to use the delimiter option to write out a file just like we did above.

proc export data=mydata outfile='c:\dissertation\tab2.txt' dbms=dlm replace;
  delimiter='09'x;
run;

Space-delimited files

It is very easy to write out a file that uses a space as a delimiter to separate variables using proc export in SAS version 8. Consider the following sample data file below.

Obs    MAKE               MPG          WEIGHT           PRICE
 1     AMC                 22            2930            4099
 2     AMC                 17            3350            4749
 3     AMC                 22            2640            3799
 4     Buick               20            3250            4816
 5     Buick               15            4080            7827

Here is a sample program that writes out a space delimited text file into the directory "c:\dissertation".

proc export data=mydata outfile='c:\dissertation\spc1.txt' dbms=dlm replace;
run;

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