topic Re: ERROR: Character expression requires character format in SAS Programming

ERROR: Character expression requires character format

Shakti_Sourav — Sat, 02 Oct 2021 10:44:51 GMT

I got this Error after Updating the data.. is it data level Error or Programming level Error ???

Because Before data Update, This logic was working Properly.

Suggest me what will I Do ?

Variables and Data Type in User WrittenVariables and Data Type in User Written

Thank You!!!

Re: ERROR: Character expression requires character format

ErikLund_Jensen — Sat, 02 Oct 2021 13:33:10 GMT

Hi @Shakti_Sourav

It is difficult to say from the available information. The source to the user-written transformation is not shown, and the log is not included. Please do the following:

Run the code again.
Perform a metadata update on the input data set to the user-written transformation (right click on the work tables). One thing is the metadata registrations you see in the column list, another is the physical reality behind it, and the userwtitten transformation does not care about metadata.
Post the step log instead of a screenshot of the error box.

Re: ERROR: Character expression requires character format

Patrick — Sat, 02 Oct 2021 13:54:52 GMT

You would need to share the SAS log with us. Just guessing based on what you show us:

You've changed somewhere in metadata a column from numerical to character and you've got some expression in the code which expects the variable to be character.

You are using a view as input. From the looks of it the column in the physical data the view uses is still numerical. Changing the data type in metadata doesn't change the data type in the physical data. This only happens when you run the code that re-creates the physical data using the changed metadata.

Make sure the metadata data type which creates the physical data use by the view has the right data type and run your DI job from the node which then creates the physical data. ....and should this node not always recreate the physical data (i.e. because it's an append) then manually delete the physical SAS table and re-run the whole job.

And on a side note: If you've got a user written code node then change the default text "user written" to something more descriptive like "uw - <very short description what the logic does"

Re: ERROR: Character expression requires character format

Shakti_Sourav — Mon, 04 Oct 2021 07:26:52 GMT

I got this error in User written log.

Re: ERROR: Character expression requires character format

Kurt_Bremser — Mon, 04 Oct 2021 07:47:39 GMT

This user written code has more than 2500 lines, what you show us is just the symptom, not the cause. What we see is that the dataset is not a dataset, but a SQL view. Look where the view is defined, and then see which of the source variables has the type character when numeric is expected.

Re: ERROR: Character expression requires character format

Patrick — Tue, 05 Oct 2021 00:37:37 GMT

For testing: Change in the node that creates view W3ZR3S9 the output to table and then execute this node. That will tell you directly where things don't match.

Fix the issue and only then change back to a view.

Also: At least for "important" tables it's worth to put in the little bit of extra effort and change the generated table name to something more "human readable".