The PUT/INPUT Functions in SAS

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The put/input Functions¶

1. The put function is similar to the putn function. $ is not required in the format of put and the format must not be quoted. $ is not required in the format of putn either, however, the format for putn must be quoted. It is easier to understand that $ is not required for the format of put or putn. Both of them return character values, so there is no necessary to indicate that the output is character by using $ in the format.

2. The function putn converts a numeric value to a string value. Though you can pass a string value (which will be implicitly converted to a numeric value) to the function putn, you should never do this. Since the return value of putn is always character, you should not put dollar signs in formats. That is you should use $w$. (or $w.d$) instead of $$w$. (or $$w.d$) and char$w$. (or char$w$.d) instead of $char$w$. (or char$w$.$d$), where $w$ and $d$ are integers.

3. The function putc format a character (as a character value). You have to create formats using the procedure format. See the example below. Even if it seems that you format the variable word to be numbers, it is actually a character variable.

    proc format;
        value typefmt 1='$groupx' 2='$groupy' 3='$groupz';
        value $groupx 'positive'=1 'negative'=2 'neutral'=3;
        value $groupy 'positive'=10 'negative'=20 'neutral'=30;
        value $groupz 'positive'=100 'negative'=200 'neutral'=3000;
    run;
   
    data answers;
        length word $ 8;
        input type response $;
        respfmt = put(type, typefmt.);
        word = putc(response, respfmt);
        datalines;
        1 positive
        1 negative
        1 neutral
        2 positive
        2 negative
        2 neutral
        3 positive
        3 negative
        3 neutral
    ;

4. The tricky thing is that when you functions in macro, then the return does not matter, as everything is text to macro.

5. You should not use %put in a data step, instead you should use put.

6. You can use the function input to change a character variable to a numeic one when applicable. In the contrary, you can use the function put to change a numeric variable to a character one.

    data char;
        input string :$8. date :$6.;
        numeric = input(string, 8.);
        sasdate = input(date, mmddyy6.);
        format sasdate mmddyy10.; 
        datalines;
        1234.56 031704
        3920 123104
        ;
    run;