Date:         Mon, 29 Jul 2002 16:03:05 -0600
Reply-To:     Jack Hamilton <JackHamilton@FIRSTHEALTH.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Jack Hamilton <JackHamilton@FIRSTHEALTH.COM>
Subject:      Re: piece of code from TS-659
Comments: To: RHOADSM1@WESTAT.COM
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Now that we have longer character lengths, we can spell words...

   length taxi $ 1CABx;
   length lincoln $ 0ABEx;

and to increase job security a bit more (this might be in Art's paper)

   twelve = 12x;





--
JackHamilton@FirstHealth.com
Manager, Technical Development
METRICS Department, First Health
West Sacramento, California USA


>>> "Mike Rhoads" <RHOADSM1@WESTAT.COM> 07/29/2002 1:42 PM >>>
Sounds like a great tip for the next one of Art Carpenter's "Job
Security"
papers ...

Mike Rhoads
Westat
RhoadsM1@Westat.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Jack Hamilton [mailto:JackHamilton@FIRSTHEALTH.COM]
Sent: Monday, July 29, 2002 1:18 PM
To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: piece of code from TS-659


I discovered this morning that when the manual says that a character
length specification consists of a dollar ign followed by a numeric
constant, they meant it.  The following also works:

   length x $ 0cx;

and has the same result as

   length x $12;



--
JackHamilton@FirstHealth.com
Manager, Technical Development
METRICS Department, First Health
West Sacramento, California USA


>>> "Jack Hamilton" <JackHamilton@FIRSTHEALTH.COM> 07/26/2002 4:23 PM
>>>
A case could be made that it shouldn't be correct, and I think that
case
has been made, but the language is what it is, not what we think it
ought to be.

Doing it in the current way probably made parsing easier - instead of
having separate checks for real numbers and integers, they use only a
check for a real number.

I think it makes the language more consistent to be able to use "$12."
in both the format statement and the length statement, but I can see
how
others might think it introduces confusion.





--
JackHamilton@FirstHealth.com
Manager, Technical Development
METRICS Department, First Health
West Sacramento, California USA


>>> "William W. Viergever" <wwvierg@ATTGLOBAL.NET> 07/26/2002 1:31 PM
>>>
At 11:02 AM 7/26/2002 -0600, Jack Hamilton wrote:
>"Arjen Raateland" <arjen.raateland@YMPARISTO.FI> wrote:
>
> >One respondent also pointed out that there is a format in the
length
> >statement ... It's all straight from the SI publication. I'd never
>make
> >that mistake ;-)
>
>The respondent was incorrect.
>
>      length Season Region $12.;
>
>does not contain a format in the length statement.

Jack, as usual, is technically correct <g> ... it's the darn dot that
probably threw 'em for in this case, what looks like a duck, walks
like
a
duck, and sounds like a duck .... is not a duck.

Go easy on Arjen.


------------------------------------------------------------
William W. Viergever          Voice  : (916) 483-8398
Viergever & Associates        Fax    : (916) 486-1488
Sacramento, CA 95825          E-mail : wwvierg@attglobal.net
------------------------------------------------------------