My colleagues created 4 SAS datasets in a common directory. While I can freely create and use any SAS dataset in that directory, and other teammates can freely read and process these 4 datasets, I just can’t.
Dataset Name Error Message
Close_variance_file.sas7bdat The value VARIANCE ID is not a valid SAS name.
Open_variance_file.sas7bdat The value VARIANCE ID is not a valid SAS name.
Mlone_accounts_file.sas7bdat The value UNIQUE ID is not a valid SAS name.
Variance_security_file.sas7bdat The value VARIANCE ID is not a valid SAS name.
What are these error messages supposed to mean? Make NO sense AT ALL.
Likely you have a different setting for the VALIDVARNAME option.
Run this code:
proc options option=validvarname;
run;
You will likely get this in the log:
VALIDVARNAME=V7 Specifies the rules for valid SAS variable names that can be created and processed during a SAS session.
if your colleagues run the same code I suspect that the result will be VALIDVARNAME=ANY, which allows SAS to use non-standard variable names.
Please change the thread title to: What does error message "not a valid SAS name" mean?
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