Date:         Mon, 28 Feb 2000 09:31:22 -0500
Reply-To:     "Fehd, Ronald J." <rjf2@CDC.GOV>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         "Fehd, Ronald J." <rjf2@CDC.GOV>
Subject:      Re: Character variables and formats
Comments: To: BONNET Christophe <Christophe.BONNET@GEP.FR>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="windows-1252"

> From: BONNET Christophe [mailto:Christophe.BONNET@GEP.FR]
> I'd like to know if there is a way to define a variable as character,
> without defining its size. My problem is that I use a macro
> which defines a
> variable xxx. This variable can take different character
> values. First I
> don't want to limit the length if values are long. On the
> other hand I don't
> want to define a large length because I need to print the
> data and I don't
> want a 40 bytes long column when my column could be a 3 bytes one.

Since you are defining the variable in a macro you could do some processing
and either change the format associated with the variable or adjust the
length.

%LET WIDTH = 0;
data _NULL_;
retain MaxLength;
 set WHATEVER(keep = CharVar) end = EndoFile;
 MaxLength = max(MaxLength,length(CharVar)));
if EndoFile then call symput('MAXLEN',compress(put(MaxLength,3.)));
run;%put MaxLen<&MAXLEN.>;

then use either
proc DATASETS
 modify WHATEVER;
 format CharVar = $char&MAXLEN..;
%*NOTE SNAKE-EYES <..> mac-var delimiter suffix + format suffix;

or another data step with attribute or length statement;
data WHATEVER;
 attrib CharVar length = $    &MAXLEN.
                format = $char&MAXLEN..;

hth

Ron Fehd  the macro maven  CDC Atlanta GA USA RJF2@cdc.gov
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