Date:         Mon, 5 Dec 2005 14:10:19 -0500
Reply-To:     "Howard Schreier <hs AT dc-sug DOT org>" <nospam@HOWLES.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         "Howard Schreier <hs AT dc-sug DOT org>" <nospam@HOWLES.COM>
Subject:      Re: Length of variable

On Mon, 5 Dec 2005 10:51:32 -0500, Michael S. Zdeb
<msz03@HEALTH.STATE.NY.US> wrote:

>Hi...the FORMAT has nothing to do with the LENGTH.  The length is set
>either in a LENGTH statement of by the INFORMAT used to read the variable
>value.  How did you read the data to create tha data set?

I would put that differently. The format has nothing to do with the length
if the length is already determined when the compiler encounters the FORMAT
(or ATTRIB) statement. When I run

   data test;
   format x $23.;
   x = 'a';
   run;

X has a length of 23, but if I reverse the order of the FORMAT and
assignment statements, it has a length of 1.

>
>
>Mike Zdeb
>U@Albany School of Public Health
>1 University Drive
>Rensselaer, NY   12144-3456
>(P)518-402-6479
>(F)630-604-1475
>
>
>
>             "Sridhar, Kumar"
>             <nsridhar@MEDAREX
>             .COM>                                                      To
>             Sent by: "SAS(r)          SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
>             Discussion"                                                cc
>             <SAS-L@LISTSERV.U
>             GA.EDU>                                               Subject
>                                       Length of variable
>
>             12/05/2005 10:48
>             AM
>
>
>             Please respond to
>             "Sridhar, Kumar"
>             <nsridhar@MEDAREX
>                   .COM>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Hi all:
>
>            I have a dataset in which I defined the format for the
>variable comment as $200.  But when I see the length (thru' proc
>contents) it has 202.  I am just curious why the length is longer than
>the format.  I checked the length of the longest comment and found it to
>be 200.
>
>
>
>
>
>Any suggestions would, as always, be appreciated.
>
>
>
>
>
>Regards
>
>
>
>Kumar