How do I create a VARCHAR in SAS?

How do I create a VARCHAR in SAS?

You must use the CAS engine when creating a VARCHAR in SAS Viya. When you use the CAS engine with the DATA step, specify the CAS libref on the output data set. The length of VARCHAR variables is determined based on the number of characters the string contains.

What is VARCHAR example?

VARCHAR is a variable length string data type, so it holds only the characters you assign to it. VARCHAR takes up 1 byte per character, + 2 bytes to hold length information. For example, if you set a VARCHAR(100) data type = ‘Jen’, then it would take up 3 bytes (for J, E, and N) plus 2 bytes, or 5 bytes in all.

What is VARCHAR SAS?

SAS defines the length of a VARCHAR data type in terms of characters rather than bytes. The maximum length of a VARCHAR variable is 536,870,911 Unicode characters, or, 2 31 bytes. This means that up to 536,870,911 characters, or 2,147,483,644 bytes of data or can be stored in a VARCHAR variable.

What is VARCHAR data type?

As the name suggests, varchar means character data that is varying. Also known as Variable Character, it is an indeterminate length string data type. It can hold numbers, letters and special characters. SQL varchar usually holds 1 byte per character and 2 more bytes for the length information.

What is SAS format?

Informats tell SAS how to read data, while formats tell SAS how to write (or print) data. This tutorial shows how to use informats and formats to correctly read in data, as well as change how printed data is displayed to the user.

What is the varchar data type in SAS 9.4?

SAS has introduced a new VARCHAR data type with SAS 9.4 M5. This new data type is included to support SAS VIYA® and the new HDAT data type used within the CAS Engine. However, the core capabilities of VARCHAR are included in the DATA step as part of the BASE SAS license, whether you have VIYA and CAS in your SAS environment or not.

Can a varachar be declared with a format statement?

Unlike SAS standard character variables, a VARACHAR cannot be declared with a FORMAT statement. The SAS V9 engine does not support VARCHAR fields as a storage type. Therefore, the VARCHAR field will be available within your DATA step but will not be outputted as a VARCHAR when a V9 dataset is used as the output table.

How to convert character values to numeric values in SAS?

To convert character values to numeric values, use the INPUT function. new_variable = input(original_variable, informat. The informat tells SAS how to interpret the data in the original character variable. For example, if you have a simple string of digits like 12345678, you can use the basic numeric informat w.d :

Can a SAS date be stored as a numeric variable?

A SAS date might be formatted so that it contains characters in the display, but it is always stored as a numeric variable. For example, suppose you receive a data set that contains a variable named Startdate that is displayed in PROC PRINT output as 12JUL2016.