topic PROC append .. different lengths warning in SAS Programming

PROC append .. different lengths warning

SASAna — Mon, 06 Feb 2017 18:53:30 GMT

Hi SAS Users,

I wanted to check if there is any way to avoid truncation of the data for the below scenario of data append using proc append.

I have 10 different tables data i am appending which has different lengths and different data types (around 500 attriutes in each table).

I did reformatting of the data for all the variables which ever was different , but due to length issues , data is being truncated after appending it.

Example :

data length X $10. Y $20, ;

Proc Append Base= Base_table Data= sas_ds FORCE NOWARN;

I tried to use length statement for dataset sas_ds by taking the max length of the attributes, but that did not help me much.

Can you please suggest the options?

Thanks,

Ana

Re: PROC append .. different lengths warning

Tom — Mon, 06 Feb 2017 18:58:31 GMT

You need to make the variables in BASE table have the proper length since that is the one that defines the table that PROC APPEND is adding the data into.

Note that SAS will issue a warning if the vairable in the DATA table is defined as longer than the variable in the BASE table, even if all of the actual values will fit.

Re: PROC append .. different lengths warning

LinusH — Mon, 06 Feb 2017 21:09:36 GMT

Did you mean that you tried LENGTH in proc append? That's not possible. You could however use views to expand length of variables and append from them.

You said you reformatted all variables. Did you mean changing the SAS format? If so, that doesn't help.

Do what is your challenge? Syntax or the volume (no of variables)?