SAS help

Hi,

Considering the files you are talking about are flat files; I can give you a hint.
Follow the steps below,

1. Create a SAS dataset say beforeRun; by reading the complete single line into one variable (say txt_1) and create anohter varaible called obs_no which will have value of observation number into it i.e. _n_
2. Create another dataset say, afterRun by follwoing the same process steated above can create the varaibles (say txt_2) and obs_no.
(Remember you have read full record into single vairable; accordingly you need to specify the length of the variables)
3. create merged dataset of both of the above dataset, use have use the obs_no vairable as key for merging, the code will look like below

data merged_ds;
merge beforeRun after_Run;
by obs_no;
run;

4. Now you can compare the texts in txt_1 and txt_2 variables as below and create another dataset which will enlist the differences if any in those two files.


data differ;
set merged_ds;
if strip(txt_1) ne strip(txt_2) then output;
run;

**********************************

Hope this will help you.


sasbuddy

Worth checking out Proc Compare. I've used it a couple of times to check and it's a little unwieldy, but can simply compare ever value in ever record between the 2 datasets.
Chris.

Chris
Business Analyst, Code Monkey, Data Wrangler.
SAS Guru.