Date:         Tue, 9 Nov 2010 18:51:08 -0500
Reply-To:     Arthur Tabachneck <art297@ROGERS.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Arthur Tabachneck <art297@ROGERS.COM>
Subject:      Why doesn't the format hold?

It's probably just been too long of a day but, in running some code to
test a possible response to another thread, I came across the following
discrepancy that I don't understand.

Given this set of code:

data have ;
 input @1 var1 $1.
         @3 var2 $1.
         @5 var3 $1.
         @7 var4 $1.
         @9 var5 $1.;
 datalines;
1 2 3 Y 5
2 3 A N 6
3 4 5   7
8   9 0 1
;

proc format;
  value $testnum
  ' ','0','1','2','3','4','5','6','7','8','9'='9'
  other='x';
run;

proc freq data=have;
  format var2 $testnum.;
  tables var2;
run;

.. I end up with all missing values, which was definitely not what I
expected.  But, changing the 4th dataline to a non-missing value:

data have ;
 input @1 var1 $1.
         @3 var2 $1.
         @5 var3 $1.
         @7 var4 $1.
         @9 var5 $1.;
 datalines;
1 2 3 Y 5
2 3 A N 6
3 4 5   7
8 X 9 0 1
;

proc freq data=have;
  format var2 $testnum.;
  tables var2;
run;

.. I get the expected result.  Have I simply been working too hard today,
or is there something obvious that I've overlooked?

Art