If you use the IMPORT procedure to read a comma-delimited data set, an 
error might occur when both of the following circumstances exist: 
1. The ENCODING='UTF-16' option appears in the FILENAME statement. 
2. The HEX value '1a'x is present in the data. 
 
The error message will be as follows: 
 
  "Error: Unable to sample external file, no data in first 5 records. 
   NOTE: Import Cancelled. 
   NOTE: The SAS System stopped processing this step because of errors." 
 
The cause of this error is that SAS® software reads the '1A'x character 
as an end-of-file (EOF) character. 
 
To avoid this error, add the IGNOREDOSEOF option to the INFILE 
statement.  This action will disable the internal EOF ('1a'x) check. 
 
Incorporation of the IGNOREDOSEOF option's behavior as a default 
behavior is being considered for a future release of SAS software. 
 
Note: This problem also might appear if you use the FILENAME statement 
and the ENCODING= option to read UTF-16 or UCS-2 data. 

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