From: RolandRB on
Any idea why they did not implement the same for ODS? What if you need
both ascii output and RTF output from the same proc report call and
you want them to look the same?

FLOW
wraps the value of a character variable in its column. The FLOW option
honors the split character. If the text contains no split character,
then PROC REPORT tries to split text at a blank.

Restriction: This option has no effect on ODS destinations other than
traditional SAS monospace output.

I can do this within my reporting macros but it is far from convenient.
From: Lou on

"RolandRB" <rolandberry(a)hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:0d828d6f-b535-4ba8-96bd-4aab544a9580(a)q15g2000yqj.googlegroups.com...
> Any idea why they did not implement the same for ODS?

Does it matter why? How will it change things if you know why? I agree it
can be aggravating.

> What if you need
> both ascii output and RTF output from the same proc report call and
> you want them to look the same?

I'd question that you "need" both from one call on PROC REPORT. Granted it
would be convenient, but why the restriction. You can produce both from one
proc report call, or you can make them look the same, but you can't do both
together.

If you don't mind having two calls to PROC REPORT, what you can do is:

Set up the first PROC REPORT for ASCII output. All you want are the data
lines - no headers, column titles, etc. Direct the output to a temp file.

Read the temp file into a dataset, each field from the previous step into
its own variable of the proper length to contain that field. Each
observation holds one line of the report. All of the splits/flows or
whatever are already there.

Set up the next proc report to just regurgitate the dataset. Use ods to
direct the output to your rtf and ascii output destinations. Technically,
the rtf output won't have any splits or flows (there won't be any wrapping
within a cell), but if you print both outputs, to the eye they'll look the
same.

Caution - the wrap/flow rules in ascii and rtf are similiar but not
identical. If I remember correctly, rtf will split a hyphenated word on the
hyphen, but ascii output will not, for instance.


> FLOW
> wraps the value of a character variable in its column. The FLOW option
> honors the split character. If the text contains no split character,
> then PROC REPORT tries to split text at a blank.
>
> Restriction: This option has no effect on ODS destinations other than
> traditional SAS monospace output.
>
> I can do this within my reporting macros but it is far from convenient.