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So, according to SAS books, you do:

PROC IMPORT
DATAFILE="filename" | TABLE="tablename"
OUT=SAS-data-set
<DBMS=identifier><REPLACE>;

for data files, and you use INFILE to read raw data files...

So what exactly is "raw data files"? Are CSV files data files or "raw data files"? Are space-separated text files data files or "raw data files"?

Andrew Grimm
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Jacky Chen
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1 Answers1

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I think "data files" might refer to SAS created data files, whereas "raw data files" refers to any other data file source (excel, csv, dat, etc). As I understand it (reading roughly from "The Little SAS Book" by Delwiche & Slaughter), proc import will scan your file (at least the first 20 rows) to automatically determine variable types and ideal lengths. INFILE is a more primitive in ways, but allows you to specify what variables to read through the input keyword. You can also do data manipulations directly within the DATA step where your INFILE is used, which cannot be done with proc import (at least I don't think it can). Check http://www.sfu.ca/sasdoc/sashtml/proc/z0332605.htm and http://support.sas.com/onlinedoc/913/getDoc/en/lrcon.hlp/a000998889.htm for additional info.

William
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    correct - the distinction is usually that 'data files' are SAS datasets, and 'raw data files' are external files of a variety of types such as .csv, .txt, .dat etc. – sasfrog Nov 11 '10 at 03:15