LENGTH

LENGTH

Specifies the number of bytes SAS uses to store a variable's value

Valid: in a DATA step

CMS specifics: length of numeric variables

Syntax
See Also

Syntax

LENGTH <variable-specification-1<... variable-specification-n>> <DEFAULT=n>;

variable-specification

has the following form:

variable-1 <... variable-n> <$> length

where

variable: names the variable to be assigned to a length.
$: indicates that the preceding variable or variables are character variables.
length: is a constant that specifies the number of bytes. The length argument can range from 2 to 8 bytes for numeric variables and from 1 to 32,767 bytes for character variables.
DEFAULT=n: changes the default number of bytes used for storing the values of newly created numeric variables from 8 to the value of n. Under CMS, n can range from 2 to 8 bytes.

See Also

Valid:	in a DATA step
CMS specifics:	length of numeric variables