modified list input when character value has embedded blanks - input

Question

I am preparing SAS BASE test. In the test book chapter 17 Reading Free-format Data, there is an example about how to read character values with embedded blanks and nonstandard value, such as numbers with comma. I tested it and its result is not what the book described.
data cityrank;
infile datalines;
input rank city & $12. pop86: comma.;
datalines;
1 NEW YORK 7,262,700
2 LOS ANGELES 3,259,340
3 CHICAGO 3,009,530
4 HOUSTON 1,728,910
5 PHILADELPHIA 1,642,900
6 DETROIT 1,086,220
7 DAN DIEGO 1,015,190
8 DALLAS 1,003,520
9 SAN ANTONIA 914,350
;
what I got is like below, data set has 4 obs.
rank city pop86
1 NEW YORK 7,2 2
3 CHICAGO 3,00 4
5 PHILADELPHIA 6
7 DAN DIEGO 1, 8
Am I wrong somewhere typing the program? I have checked again and again that I copy it correctly.
How to modify this program?
Thank you!

Answer 1

I'm guessing from the typos that you didn't copy-paste this, but you typed it in instead.
As such, you (or the book writers) made another typo: there are two spaces after the city names, not one (or at least, should be). That's what the & does: it says "wait for two consecutive delimiters" (allowing a single delimiter to be ignored, so New York is read into one variable instead of split).
So this would be correct:
data cityrank;
infile datalines;
input rank city & $12. pop86: comma.;
datalines;
1 NEW YORK 7,262,700
2 LOS ANGELES 3,259,340
3 CHICAGO 3,009,530
4 HOUSTON 1,728,910
5 PHILADELPHIA 1,642,900
6 DETROIT 1,086,220
7 SAN DIEGO 1,015,190
8 DALLAS 1,003,520
9 SAN ANTONIO 914,350
;
run;