The IMPORT Procedure

Overview

The IMPORT procedure reads data from an external data source and writes it to a SAS data set. External data sources can include DBMS tables, PC files, spreadsheets, and delimited external files (which are files containing columns of data values that are separated by a delimiter such as a blank or a comma).

Once you invoke PROC IMPORT, the procedure reads the input file and writes the data to a SAS data set, with the SAS variables defined based on the input records. PROC IMPORT imports the data by one of the following methods:

generated DATA step code
generated SAS/ACCESS code
translation engines.

You control the results with options and statements that are specific to the input data source. PROC IMPORT produces the specified output SAS data set and writes information regarding the import to the SAS log. In the log, you see the DATA step or the SAS/ACCESS code generated by PROC IMPORT. If a translation engine is used, then no code is submitted.

PROC IMPORT is available on the following hosts:

OS/2
UNIX
OpenVMS
Windows 95
Windows NT
Windows 98

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