This code works for me to reveal the formats available. There is an extensive list and these formats, by themselves, are meaningless -- this is the list of what's available for formatting numbers: (you should not need a libname statement for SASHELP)
[pre]
proc print data=sashelp.vformat;
var fmtname source minw mind maxw maxd defw defd;
title 'Available Formats';
run;
[/pre]
And this paper talks about all of the "SASHELP.Vxxx" tables for finding out information on your data.
http://www2.sas.com/proceedings/sugi29/237-29.pdf
I would find this report to be more useful. What formats are used in SASHELP.PRDSALE and SASHELP.CLASS? (Or, what formats are being used in your data files of interest??)
[pre]
proc print data=sashelp.vcolumn;
where libname = 'SASHELP' and
memname in ('CLASS', 'PRDSALE');
title 'What Formats are Used for These 2 Tables';
var libname memname memtype name type length format informat label;
run;
[/pre]
And this is the output in the LISTING window. You can see that there are only 2 TYPEs for variables, char or num ... but some variables have formats assigned:
[pre]
What Formats are Used for These 2 Tables
Obs libname memname memtype name type length format informat label
1474 SASHELP CLASS DATA Name char 8
1475 SASHELP CLASS DATA Sex char 1
1476 SASHELP CLASS DATA Age num 8
1477 SASHELP CLASS DATA Height num 8
1478 SASHELP CLASS DATA Weight num 8
2333 SASHELP PRDSALE DATA ACTUAL num 8 DOLLAR12.2 Actual Sales
2334 SASHELP PRDSALE DATA PREDICT num 8 DOLLAR12.2 Predicted Sales
2335 SASHELP PRDSALE DATA COUNTRY char 10 $CHAR10. Country
2336 SASHELP PRDSALE DATA REGION char 10 $CHAR10. Region
2337 SASHELP PRDSALE DATA DIVISION char 10 $CHAR10. Division
2338 SASHELP PRDSALE DATA PRODTYPE char 10 $CHAR10. Product type
2339 SASHELP PRDSALE DATA PRODUCT char 10 $CHAR10. Product
2340 SASHELP PRDSALE DATA QUARTER num 8 8. Quarter
2341 SASHELP PRDSALE DATA YEAR num 8 4. Year
2342 SASHELP PRDSALE DATA MONTH num 8 MONNAME3. Month
[/pre]
It was my understanding that the SASHELP.Vxxx tables were available when you SAS session started -- I don't know when that is on the server machine. But on my machine, these SASHELP files and the SQL DICTIONARY. equivalents are available throughout my entire session.
cynthia
(ps...I just double checked and from a code node, the above code does work in EG.)