SAS Studio does not convert tabs to spaces by default when reading tab-delimited in-stream data using DATALINES or CARDS. The Enhanced Editor and Program Editor in Base SAS^® and the editor in SAS^® Enterprise Guide^® do convert tabs to spaces. Running unmodified code that worked in those editors might give unexpected results in SAS Studio. The default delimiter used by the INPUT statement is a space. Because the tab characters are not converted to spaces in SAS Studio, the program tries to read the tabs as data. There might be notes in the log indicating invalid data.

To read in-stream data with tab delimiters using SAS^® Studio 3.6, do the following:

• Modify the INFILE statement to indicate that the delimiter is a tab by adding the DLM= option, as shown below:

  infile datalines dlm='09'x;
  

  '09'x is the hexadecimal representation of the tab character.

To read in-stream data with tab delimiters using releases prior to SAS Studio 3.6, do one of the following:

• Modify the preference Substitute spaces for tabs. Go to Options ► Preferences ► Editor and select Substitute spaces for tabs. This will take effect for programs that are created or pasted after the preference has been changed. This will give you the same behavior as Base SAS editors and SAS Enterprise Guide.
• Modify the INFILE statement to indicate that the delimiter is a tab by adding the DLM= option, as shown below:

  infile datalines dlm='09'x;
  

  '09'x is the hexadecimal representation of the tab character.

Click the Full Code tab in this note to see an example.

Operating System and Release Information

/* The results will not be reproduced by cutting and pasting this code because the tab */
/* characters are not maintained.  You can type this code into the editors and replace */ 
/* the space between the two numbers with a tab character to see the difference. */

/* Code using the default delimiter of space.  This is required when using tab-delimited */ 
/* in-stream data in the Enhanced Editor or Program Editor. */
data one;
   input x y;
   datalines;
1    1.234
2    4.555
3    8.999
;
run;


/* Code specifying that the delimiter is a tab.  This is required when reading tab-delimited */
/* in-stream data using SAS Studio. */
data one;
   infile datalines dlm = '09'x;
   input x y;
   datalines;
1    1.234
2    4.555
3    8.999
;
run;