The BZw.d informat can read numeric values that are located anywhere in the field. Blanks can precede or follow the numeric value, and a minus sign must precede negative values. The BZw.d informat ignores blanks between a minus sign and a numeric value in an input field.

The BZw.d informat interprets a single period in a field as a 0. The informat interprets multiple periods or other nonnumeric characters in a field as a missing value.

To use BZw.d in a DATA step with list input, change the delimiter for list input with the DLM= or DLMSTR= option in the INFILE statement. By default, SAS interprets blanks between values in the data line as delimiters rather than 0s.

Comparisons

The BZw.d informat converts trailing or embedded blanks to 0s. If you do not want to convert trailing blanks to 0s (for example, when reading values in E notation), use either the w.d informat or the Ew.d informat instead.

Example

input @1 x bz4.;

Data Line	Result
----+----1
34	3400
-2	-200
-2 1	-201