SAS Companion for the OpenVMS Operating Environment

Missing Values

In the SAS System under OpenVMS Alpha, missing values are represented by IEEE Not-a-Number values. An IEEE Not-a-Number is an IEEE floating-point bit pattern that represents something other than a valid numeric value. These numbers are not computationally derivable, meaning that the numeric representation for a Not-a-Number is artificially set. The bit pattern will never be generated by an arithmetic operation.

Note: In the OpenVMS VAX environment, the missing value representation can be generated by a large operation (magnitude of operations) and is thus computationally derivable. [cautionend]

Chapter Contents
Previous
Next
Top of Page