topic Require proper format in SAS Programming

Require proper format

Sathya3 — Thu, 12 Oct 2023 11:28:09 GMT

I want to read below column from input file and display them in the format specified..I want to write the sas format with below information .

column datatype logical_datatype length format

ccy_ccd string text 3 $3.00

--------

PROC SQL;

create table template (

ccy_ccd char(3) format=??

);

quit;

Re: Require proper format

Kurt_Bremser — Thu, 12 Oct 2023 11:36:30 GMT

You don't need a format for character variables. SAS will always display all characters.

Re: Require proper format

maguiremq — Thu, 12 Oct 2023 11:38:55 GMT

So the value would contain dollar amounts?

Any reason it isn't numeric?

Re: Require proper format

Sathya3 — Thu, 12 Oct 2023 11:47:44 GMT

It looks like a currency code..rather than a number

Re: Require proper format

Kurt_Bremser — Thu, 12 Oct 2023 11:54:37 GMT

If it contains values like "USD" or "EUR", then positively no format is needed.

Re: Require proper format

Tom — Thu, 12 Oct 2023 12:31:21 GMT

To store up to three bytes you need to define the variable to have a LENGTH of 3.

Attaching a format to it is not that important. Formats are special instructions for printing/displaying the values. You do not need to give SAS any special instructions for displaying normal character values. But if you did want to attach a format (perhaps to remove a mistakenly attached format since PROC SQL has no syntax for removing formats from variables) then just use the normal $ format with a width of 3.

Character formats do not allow for decimal places (what would it even mean?) so it is not clear why your description has that extra 00 in the format column.

In normal SAS code it might look like:

data want;
  length ccy_ccd $3 ;
  format ccy_ccd $3. ;
....