@Kabuto wrote:
The SAS was installed by our IT person. I did not change any interface setting, so the by-default output is the listing destination. I knew using the HTML destination can have a better performance to review outputs, but for some personal reasons, I still prefer having my outputs in the listing destination. Previously I set the line size = 80 and the page size = 40, and got the note which stuck my SAS. By using your suggestions of setting the line size = 100 and page size = 60, now I can get rid of the annoying note and make my SAS codes run smoothly. Not so sure why the line size and page size do matter, but I will use your suggestion to generate SAS outputs. Thank you!
As I mentioned, there are templates that control which columns go in which output for procedures. Since the listing destination has a limited fixed number of columns, max of 256, then some tables have a hard time fitting in narrow lines.
Consider a basic output table that has 5 columns and a line size of 60.
The listing destination uses:
5 print positions for | (or other character depending on your settings) to specify the column boundaries.
Then you have the formats assigned to any variables. So if you have 5 numeric variables that are using a F16.0 format each will attempt to use 16 characters (5*16=80) and now the procedure wants to use 85 total characters. But with the line size of 64 then SAS has to start working with values. Such as changing the format. Or for character variables splitting across lines (and across pages). Depending on which procedure and the specific output tables the rules may just have a hard time within constraints to fit in the number of characters on line. I am not sure whether some of the later procedures / optional tables have had as much thought into the exceptions needed for the listing destination as the procedures that have been around since the days of tractor-driven green-bar 132 column paper.
This is likely a gross over-simplification but it may give you an idea of why line size, and less likely page size, might cause problems.
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