OK, think I got it. Here is a screen capture of the trouble area: And here is the code that procduces it: data bernsen ; set bernsen_import ; radius=substr(scan(label, 3, ':-'), 2 ); threshold=substr(scan(label, 4, ':-'), 2 ); run; I finally understood that the last number in the substring statement dictates length and that it did not have to be specified. So removing it fixed the problem. Thank you so much for your amazingly fast help. I'll remember those useful functions because I do this all the time. Dave
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