topic Re: Modify Predefined format in SAS Visual Analytics

Modify Predefined format

Kalind_Patel — Sun, 06 Mar 2016 12:14:52 GMT

Hi All,
Is their any way to change pre defined format ?
For eg: i want to change commaw.d format, which is by default giving value like this 123,456,000 but my client wants value like this 12,34,56,000 (in indian comma )

My problem is that i had tried to create picture format and imported this format in SAS VA, but in VA if we use any user-defined format than it will convert that variable to category, and we can not convert it to measure if we want to use user-defined format (in my case that format is indian comma format), so in category i can not do calculations on that variable with user-defined format, ao is their any other way to apply user-defined format in VA and can do calculations also.

Re: Modify Predefined format

FreelanceReinh — Sun, 06 Mar 2016 13:41:07 GMT

Hi @Kalind_Patel,

No, I don't think you can change a SAS-supplied format. You can only create your own user-defined formats (where using the same name as a SAS-supplied format is not a good idea, see SAS Problem Note 18075), as you did already.

I'm not familiar with VA, but normally a format on a numeric variable should not prevent calculations. In any case it should be possible to perform the calculations before the format comes into play. The format could be assigned at a late stage, only for reporting purposes.

Re: Modify Predefined format

Kalind_Patel — Sun, 06 Mar 2016 14:39:05 GMT

Thanks @freelancereinhard for your reply, actually i tried both ways, using same name of predefined format & using with another name,
But no luck !!
And about VA limitation which i am talking about, i am also surprised after i knew that VA is not allowing variable (which has user-defined format ) to calculate, in base sas and eg, i can easily do calculations on the same variae with same user-defined format.

Please see this link :
http://support.sas.com/kb/47/100.html

In this link under "Formats in SAS® Visual Analytics Designer" section, it is clearly mentioned that you can not convert that variable (user-define format enabled ) from category to measure, and even i can not do calculations before applying the format, it is not possible in my scenario.

Re: Modify Predefined format

FreelanceReinh — Sun, 06 Mar 2016 14:54:05 GMT

If there was no other way, I would then

leave that numeric variable X unformatted
perform the calculations with it
store the result of the calculation in a different variable Y
apply the desired format for reporting to variable Y

But, again, I have never used VA. So, the above approach may be unusual.

Re: Modify Predefined format

Kalind_Patel — Sun, 06 Mar 2016 15:14:07 GMT

Thanks @freelancereinhard for you advice,
But unfortunately it will not work in VA,
Because va will do live calculations,
Not like base sas, so it will not work,
But anyway i really appreciate your assistance to solve this issue, thank you very much.