topic Re: Zw.d example in documentation doesn't work in SAS Programming

Zw.d example in documentation doesn't work

DavidBrown — Tue, 24 Mar 2020 15:30:54 GMT

The code example in SAS support documentation Zw.d SAS Documentation doesn't seem to do what they say it should do.

data one;

num=1350;

put num z8.; run;

When I run this, I get

Documentation says I should see:

I don't get the leading zeros.

Advice would be appreciated.

Thanks

David

Re: Zw.d example in documentation doesn't work

Kurt_Bremser — Tue, 24 Mar 2020 15:38:11 GMT

You only use the format in the PUT statement, so it only has effect on the output in the SAS log. To make it have an effect on the column as stored in the dataset (and visible in the OUTPUT DATA tab), you need to use a FORMAT statement:

data one;
num=1350;
format num z8.;
run;

Re: Zw.d example in documentation doesn't work

DavidBrown — Tue, 24 Mar 2020 15:41:08 GMT

@Kurt_Bremser Thanks so much. I wish they would explain that in the documentation. Coming from R, Python, and SQL, I find SAS documentation leaves much to be desired. But, thanks again, and I appreciate the reply.

Re: Zw.d example in documentation doesn't work

Kurt_Bremser — Tue, 24 Mar 2020 15:56:23 GMT

Why do you find that SAS documentation leaves much to be desired?

From the documentation of the PUT Statement:

PUT Statement

Writes lines to the SAS log, to the SAS output window, or to an external location that is specified in the most recent FILE statement.

(Emphasis by me)

What I do mean: because of the sheer mass of all things SAS, the documentation is awe-inspring because of its sheer size. It takes some time to get a feel for where to look. Whenever you are puzzled by the behaviour of a piece of code, look up the documentation for all elements used, and also do not forget that there might be other things having an influence that are not part of the code, like the setting of system options or the current state of the ODS.