Access variable lengths in a data step?

[weg]

I need to automate using put to display information including data values and to align them using @. There are too many to do manually so it seems I need to be able to get the length of the variable so I can align each column when printing.

 I know I can do proc contents beforehand, but that wont get me the length of anything created during the data step which I would need.

Is there an easy way of accessing this information in the data step?

[Tom · Accepted solution]

You can get the defined length of a variable using the VLENGTH() function. You can get the actual length of a value using the LENGTH() function.