special printable character $ show in my datasets instead of the originial special character

[saskapa]

Hi,

I a m facing a strange issue with some of my data sets, that I am QCing.

Both me and an external users are working on those input data sets. Surprisingly, some  special character ( that are printable), that is $...are displayed in my sas system but it is not show by the external user. For example,  values like 1+,3+,>100 are displayed as $ in my   data sets, while in the external user, those $ signs are not shown. Example, like for instance >100 appears as $$100.

I have added a screenshot that show the difference in character display between me and external user of the same data set.

Following things to consider/observed:

1.the data sets were created in Linux environment

2. My environment is X64_R

3. External user's host is SunOS

4. In the screenshot, you can see that the external's  translated $ have an unusual bigger font size, and even a different font.

5. I have contacted the external user, and  they are  not aware of any issue; they don't  see the $ sings

6. both are on UTF-8 ( don't think its relevant here)

My question is  hence :

What can I do, in order to unmask/recover the true character hidden by $$ ? If ever it is possible to recover...

Thanks

Kapa

[Kurt_Bremser]

You can post pictures by clicking the "Photos" button in the "Rich Text" tab of the main posting windows.

[ballardw]

Some of this type of content may have to go back to how the data is originally brought into SAS. Details like source file encoding, SAS session encoding and instructions on reading the data can have pretty big impact on the content of variables in this world of ASCII, UTF-8, UTF-16 and use of single or double byte character sets.

Another is what SAS Format(s) are associated with the variables?

This may mean providing an example of data that shows this behavior (need not be sensitive real data, just demonstrate the behavior) and how the data is read. If this is brought into SAS from an external database system then options on both the DBMS and SAS may need to be shared.

Also, you may want to describe how the "external user" is accessing this data. Are they reading reports or files created by exporting data, using a file viewer or what.

And my organization policies don't allow opening ZIP files from unknown parties. So posting images as @Kurt_Bremser indicates is the way to go. You should also describe what is making those images and which application is the source of the image.