Require proper format

[Sathya3]

I want to read below column from input file and display them in the format specified..I want to write the sas format with below information .

column    datatype       logical_datatype        length        format

ccy_ccd      string                   text                           3                $3.00

--------

PROC SQL;

create table template (

ccy_ccd char(3) format=??

);

quit;

[Kurt_Bremser]

You don't need a format for character variables. SAS will always display all characters.

[maguiremq]

So the value would contain dollar amounts?

Any reason it isn't numeric?

[Sathya3]

It looks like a currency code..rather than a number

[Kurt_Bremser]

If it contains values like "USD" or "EUR", then positively no format is needed.

[Tom]

To store up to three bytes you need to define the variable to have a LENGTH of 3. 

Attaching a format to it is not that important. Formats are special instructions for printing/displaying the values.  You do not need to give SAS any special instructions for displaying normal character values.  But if you did want to attach a format (perhaps to remove a mistakenly attached format since PROC SQL has no syntax for removing formats from variables) then just use the normal $ format with a width of 3. 

Character formats do not allow for decimal places (what would it even mean?) so it is not clear why your description has that extra 00 in the format column.

In normal SAS code it might look like:

data want;
  length ccy_ccd $3 ;
  format ccy_ccd $3. ;
....