Hi there,
can anybody explain to me in simple words why libref and fileref are limited to 8 characters?
What is the reason why we can't use .. I don't know .. 32 characters?
Thanks in advance.
SAS was developed on IBM mainframes, and so SAS object names resemble typical OS/360 / MVS / z/OS file names, and those have a restriction that every level can have a maximum of 8 characters (so the names look like PROD.SOURCE.CNTL, but PROD.JOBSOURCE.CNTL is impossible), this is a legacy restriction coming from the early development of SAS.
It depends on the internal quality of the code repository if changing the underlying type from 8 to 32 characters will break something or not.
OTOH, I've never felt the need for more characters in file/librefs. And as a longtime programmer (and UNIX at that), I hate unnecessary typing. So 8 character libnames and 32 character dataset names is enough for me.
Legacy restrictions.
8 chars is one byte so that may have something to do with it.
SAS was developed on IBM mainframes, and so SAS object names resemble typical OS/360 / MVS / z/OS file names, and those have a restriction that every level can have a maximum of 8 characters (so the names look like PROD.SOURCE.CNTL, but PROD.JOBSOURCE.CNTL is impossible), this is a legacy restriction coming from the early development of SAS.
It depends on the internal quality of the code repository if changing the underlying type from 8 to 32 characters will break something or not.
OTOH, I've never felt the need for more characters in file/librefs. And as a longtime programmer (and UNIX at that), I hate unnecessary typing. So 8 character libnames and 32 character dataset names is enough for me.
Are you ready for the spotlight? We're accepting content ideas for SAS Innovate 2025 to be held May 6-9 in Orlando, FL. The call is open until September 25. Read more here about why you should contribute and what is in it for you!
Learn how use the CAT functions in SAS to join values from multiple variables into a single value.
Find more tutorials on the SAS Users YouTube channel.