Merging Multiple Datasets with Differing Formats - NHIS Across Years Merge

[K_Taylor]

I am trying to merge the datasets from the NHIS sample adult and person files from years 2006 to 2018. I am able to merge within the years without any problem, however, when I attempt to merge across years, SAS provides a long list of format errors - for example:

The error list goes on and on since there are so many variables in the datasets with associated formats.

The formats for each year are all stored as permanent format files. And I've tried to use the below statement, without luck.

options fmtsearch=(fmtlib);

data out.comboNHIS;
set tomerge2006 tomerge2007 tomerge2008 tomerge2009 tomerge2010 
tomerge2011 tomerge2012 tomerge2013 tomerge2014 tomerge2015
tomerge2016 tomerge2017 tomerge2018;
run;

Is there anyway to embed each of the formats within each of the individual datasets when importing them so that I won't run into this issue? Any other easy solution to this?

Using v.9.4.

[Astounding]

You will need the formats eventually.  But if you just want to be able to skip the error messages temporarily, you can issue this as the first statement in the program:

options nofmterr;

It eliminates the error message when a format cannot be found.

[Reeza]

I thought those data sets came with the format files. Did you run that program specifically? Did it error out for some reason?