What does error message "not a valid SAS name" mean?

[whealthest88]

My colleagues created 4 SAS datasets in a common directory.   While I can freely create and use any SAS dataset in that directory, and other teammates can freely read and process these 4 datasets, I just can’t.

Dataset Name                                                            Error Message

Close_variance_file.sas7bdat                                  The value VARIANCE ID is not a valid SAS name.

Open_variance_file.sas7bdat                                  The value VARIANCE ID is not a valid SAS name.

Mlone_accounts_file.sas7bdat                                The value UNIQUE ID is not a valid SAS name.

Variance_security_file.sas7bdat                             The value VARIANCE ID is not a valid SAS name.

What are these error messages supposed to mean?   Make NO sense AT ALL.

[ballardw]

Likely you have a different setting for the VALIDVARNAME option.

Run this code:

proc options option=validvarname;

run;

You will likely get this in the log:

VALIDVARNAME=V7   Specifies the rules for valid SAS variable names that can be created and
                   processed during a SAS session.

if your colleagues run the same code I suspect that the result will be VALIDVARNAME=ANY, which allows SAS to use non-standard  variable names.

[ChrisNZ]

Please change the thread title to: What does error message "not a valid SAS name" mean?