PROC COMPARE Warning.

[suraestar]

Hi I am getting the below error message when i compare two dataset using proc compare. WARNING: The requested format could not be applied successfully because the Value Comparison Results report restricts         the variable's column width to 9 and this format requires a larger minimum width. please help me to solve this. CODE: data a; b=4244; format a b is8601da.; run; data b; b=3213; format a b is8601da.; run; proc compare base=a comp=b maxprint=(30,20); run; PLs find the attached output.

[Quentin]

Interesting.  Looks like the format you used is too wide to fit in the PROC COMPARE output.  I would have thought SAS would automatically change to use a best. format instead, but apparently it doesn't.  Probably the easiest thing to do would just be to "un-format" the variable in your PROC COMPARE step.

proc compare .... ;

  format a b;  * Clear problematic formats.  Can also use format _all_ ;

run;

That should allow the step to run.

[suraestar]

Hi there, Thanks, but i would like to compare the data with formats applied. Is there anyother options (in PROC COMPARE) or method to compare the formatted datasets. Thanks