Thanks everyone.   I take it there is no optimal solution (like vvalue() outside data step, or put() with a default), but I like the ideas of  having views with both formatted and raw values for our main tables creating a fmt% macro as presented by mkeintz, but combining with unison's suggestion to derive it automatically - since formats are unique to the variable name in that environment accross tables, this shouldn't be an issue - I'll see if I can even combine it with use of vvalue where applicable if not a variable in one of our standard tables. I'd post it when I get to do it - or accept it as a solution, when someone else does 🙂 --------------------------- EDIT --------------------------- This would currently be my solution: %Macro fmt(var); %local dsid rc; %let dsid = %sysfunc(open(sashelp.vcolumn(where=(upcase(name)=upcase("&var")) obs=1))); %put &dsid; %if &dsid %then %do; %syscall set(dsid); %let rc=%sysfunc(fetchobs(&dsid,1)); %let dsid = %sysfunc(close(&dsid)); %end; %if not %symexist(format) %then %do; &var %end; %else %do; put(&var, &format) %end; %mend;   /*Test&Examples*/ proc format; value yesno 0='No' .=' ' other='Yes'; run; data test; format ayesno yesno.; input ayesno; b=%fmt(ayesno); datalines; 1 0 1 run;   proc print data=test(where=(%fmt(ayesno)='No')); run;   Thanks to mkeintz and in particular to unison for the technique to get the &format via fetchobs (at least that's where I think &format comes from, even though I could not spot anything in respect of return of variables as macro variables in the fetchobs-documentation).   ... View more

people are actuaries 🙂 which means they are both (end user programming), while obviously some are power users (frequent programming), others more occasionally programming (more using existing programs where I can use graphic prompts in SAS EG) ... View more