How to change the length of a variable name?

[toddtodd]

I have a data set, which is a balance sheet, that I imported from Excel that looks like:

Variable                                                                         Amount

Gaming Equipment, Vehicles and Other Equipment            585860

Revenue                                                                         1000490

I successfully was able to import the above data set by using length variable $78 to include all the words in gaming, equipment, vehicles and other equipment.

I would like to transpose the data set. I can successfully do so by doing the following.

proc transpose data=work.BS out=BS_transpose;

id variable;

var Amount;

run;

The problem is that the variable name "Gaming Equipment, Vehicles and Other Equipment" is too long for SAS. How do I lengthen the variable name?

Thank you,

Todd

[data_null__ · Accepted solution]

You cannot 32 is max variable name length.  You can use IDLABEL to make the value of variable the variable label.  I would create variable names from the value of variable that conform to V7 SAS Names and make sense to you and are easy to remember.