Date:         Mon, 25 Aug 2003 09:22:12 -0400
Reply-To:     "Fehd, Ronald J. (PHPPO)" <rjf2@CDC.GOV>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         "Fehd, Ronald J. (PHPPO)" <rjf2@CDC.GOV>
Subject:      feature: when is a literal not a hex value?
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

while working with Master HashMan Dorfman's
symput of a real number to a hex value
http://www.listserv.uga.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0203D&L=sas-l&P=R13964
note: his example number is
113  data _null_ ;
114     n_int = 1234567.89012349 ;
115     call symput ('hrbn', put(put(n_int, rb8.),$hex16.)) ;
116  run ;

I came across the most interesting weirdness:
while trying to figure out how to quote the symput string.

DATA _Null_;
array nmbr (*) 8
               Fraction X
               ( 0      3FD5555555555555x);
Fraction       = 1/3;
array chr  (*) $ 20
               Qs Qd
               ('3FD5555555555555'x
                "3FD5555555555555"x);
do I = 1 to dim(Nmbr);
put 'num  ' Nmbr(I)= Nmbr(I) hex16.;
put 'char ' Chr(I) = Chr(I)  hex16.;
end;
stop;
run;

log, aligned to highlight hex string
num  FRACTION=0.3333333333 3FD5555555555555
char QS      =?ÕUUUUUU     3FD5555555555555
num  X       =4.5996764E18 43CFEAAAAAAAAAAA
char QD      =?ÕUUUUUU     3FD5555555555555

any reasonable explanation
as to why X is not equal to Fraction
will be thoroughly pondered.

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

remember perspective: the error is not always where it seems to occur! --
RJF2