title: how to read only specific coulmns from external tab delimited files using proc import into sas dataset
body: <p>is it possible to read only specific variabiles from text files into sas as sas dataset using proc import? I have very big data in my text file which contains like 1000 observations and more than 42,000 variables. I tried reading this file into sas using proc import  but i failed in doing so i thought may be because of size issues. Now i decided to read only specific variables (columns) really i do not need all of them from this big text file so that i can reduce size of file to read into sas system. is there any ideas to read like this by using data step? Suggestion or help would be appreciated</p>
  
  <p>Thanking you very much,</p>