Searching the permanent storage location for formats

[chouchou]

Given the following OPTIONS statement:

libname A 'SAS library reference';

libname F 'SAS library reference';

options fmtsearch = (A F.X);

What is the second location searched for formats?

A.F.X

B.A.FORMATS

C.WORK.FORMATS

D.SAS supplied formats

The answer is C.

However I feel it should be Library.formats which doesn't appear as answers at all.

What do you guys feel about?Can anyone explain it to me? Thank you so much!Usingocati

[Astounding]

According to the documentation, you are correct.  I might let SAS off on a technicality, however.

Note that when you create a format, you are not permitted to use a name that SAS has already defined in its list of existing formats.  For example, this program would fail because monyy is not permitted as a name:

proc format;

  value monyy  1='Hey';

run;

So when SAS searches for a format, it first looks to see if the format is on the list of SAS-Institute-supplied formats.  Then it follows the FMTSEARCH rules which in this case would begin with WORK.FORMATS.

At best, the question is not clear in what it asks for.