At 08:19 28/04/00 -0500, Workman, Robert wrote:

>Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be that simple when using functions to set >the initial value of the variables. "The rule" holds true when using >assignment statements to assign a literal string to the variable. However, >different functions seem to have different rules for determining the length.

Robert, yes, you're dead right - and Ian W has explained the 'thinking' that the SAS compiler uses when the first encounter with a variable is an assignment with the value returned by a function like SUBSTR() - I had never noticed that the compiler was so 'clever'!

However, I think the bottom line still remains the same - that, unless one is sure that one knows what one is doing, and equally sure of all possible ata situations, one is advised to explicitly define the length of a character variable that has not come from another data set.

Thanks for pointing out my error!

Kind Regards,

John

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