topic Re: Changing Length of Variable Names (Beyond 32 chars) in SAS Programming

Changing Length of Variable Names (Beyond 32 chars)

deleted_user — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 19:42:02 GMT

I am auto-creating variable names, and sometimes the names extend beyond 32 characters in length. Rather than manually adjusting the process, I want to override the system limit of 32 characters.

SAS Support doesn't know how to do this; however, I did do this twice before (at a former place of work), but I don't remember exactly how I did it. I think there was some sort of option like setnamelength or something (logical) like that. Any help? Thanks.

Re: Changing Length of Variable Names (Beyond 32 chars)

sbb — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 20:47:31 GMT

Investigate the SAS support website http://support.sas.com/ and search on VALIDVARNAME CONFIG option in various DOC references and TECHNOTE and HOTFIX reference items.

Scott Barry
SBBWorks, Inc.

Re: Changing Length of Variable Names (Beyond 32 chars)

deleted_user — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 19:01:30 GMT

Thanks for the direction. I might be dull: I can't find a means of extending the lengths of my variable names under this designation. The VALIDVARNAME option seems to only allow up to 32 characters in a variable name. Did I miss something? What option could I set to allow variable names like A_VARIABLE_NAME_WITH_MORE_THAN_32_CHARACTERS ? Thanks.

Re: Changing Length of Variable Names (Beyond 32 chars)

sbb — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 20:48:35 GMT

This is a SAS software architecture limit - here is the current DOC that mentions the particulars:

Names in the SAS Language
http://support.sas.com/documentation/cdl/en/lrcon/61722/HTML/default/a000998953.htm

Scott Barry
SBBWorks, Inc.