Programatically manipulate data objects in SAS VI

[ijmoorejr]

I am interested in learning how to programmatically manipulate data objects that have been imported into SAS VI. For example, how would one change the length of a field or maybe change a field from character to numeric by writing code as opposed to pointing and clicking in the gui or dropping the data object and rebuilding with the needed changes.

I'm looking for basic skeleton code examples or good papers or articles on this topic.

Thanks.