The EDIT option of the GET statement specifies edit-directed input.
The GET EDIT statement uses a format list to control scanning of the input stream and conversion of fields. Each field is first converted under control of a data format and the converted value is then assigned to the corresponding list variable. An additional conversion may occur as part of that assignment.
For a description of each data format conversion, see the section Format Controlled Conversion in the chapter Data Type Conversions, and for a description of format-list evaluation, see the section FORMAT Statement.
GET FILE(F) EDIT(A,B,C) (E(14,3),SKIP,F(10)); GET FILE(F) EDIT(D) (A(10));
In this example, A is assigned the field converted by E (14,3) , a new line is read by SKIP, B is assigned the field converted by F (10) , and C is assigned the next field converted by E (14, 3). The SKIP is not evaluated a second time, because no variables remain in the list. D receives a value from the field converted by A (10) . That field is the 10 characters that immediately follow the second field that was converted by E (14, 3) and assigned to C. Note that the A-Format is used without a field width to read a variable-length line, as discussed in the section A-Format in the chapter Data Type Conversions.
When multiple (input-list) (format-list) pairs are specified, this is equivalent to specifying all the input items consecutively in one list, then all the format items consecutively in one list.