topic Re: how many bytes? in SAS Programming

how many bytes?

tianerhu — Wed, 12 May 2021 00:44:07 GMT

How many bytes does the variable Q20 in the PDV?

Re: how many bytes?

SASKiwi — Wed, 12 May 2021 00:59:52 GMT

Your question is incomplete so is impossible to answer. If Q20 is a numeric variable then the default storage amount is 8 bytes. If it is character then it would depend on the number of characters being assigned to it. For example this statement - Q20 = 'ABC'; - will create the variable with a length of 3 characters or 3 bytes.

Re: how many bytes?

tianerhu — Wed, 12 May 2021 12:56:46 GMT

let suppose the Q20 is character variable .

Re: how many bytes?

ballardw — Wed, 12 May 2021 15:50:46 GMT

@tianerhu wrote:

let suppose the Q20 is character variable .

Run Proc Contents on the data set, look at the LENGTH for the variable.

Re: how many bytes?

SASKiwi — Wed, 12 May 2021 20:34:06 GMT

The number of bytes used by a character variable in the PDV will be the same as on disk. As @ballardw suggests PROC CONTENTS will give you the length in characters and that is usually is also the number of bytes.

Re: how many bytes?

tianerhu — Wed, 12 May 2021 21:59:26 GMT

Thank you for your help.

Re: how many bytes?

Tom — Thu, 13 May 2021 03:36:18 GMT

@SASKiwi wrote:

The number of bytes used by a character variable in the PDV will be the same as on disk. As @ballardw suggests PROC CONTENTS will give you the length in characters and that is usually is also the number of bytes.

PROC CONTENTS will give you the length in ~~characters~~ bytes and that is usually is also the number of ~~bytes~~ characters.

Re: how many bytes?

tianerhu — Fri, 14 May 2021 15:34:53 GMT

Thank you for your help.

Re: how many bytes?

SASKiwi — Fri, 14 May 2021 22:16:02 GMT

@tianerhu - If you are happy with the responses to your post please mark the best response as answering your question.