Probably isn't terribly efficient, but if the data sets are not large, or if the cycles are available, it might still be a reasonable thing to do.

I dug the following macro out that I used a while back when I was reading in CSV data and all the lengths were defaulting to 255. The code queries dictionary tables to identify the max length of all the character variables (the SQL trick was "acquired" from a Peter Crawford post a while back), followed by a data step to build format and informat statements, which is then followed by a data step to reassign the length for the char vars to the longest value (note that happens because the fomrat and informat statements are before the SET statement).

This macro won't work for character variables that have a format already defined (was not an issue in the problem I needed the macro for). It also assume the total length of the format list is 1024 (again not an issue for the quick and dirty data load I needed it for). So if you want to try this, and either of these restrictions are an issue for you, you could either tweak the code or you could just change the code to assign a length instead of a format.

And for your problem, you might not need to rewrite the data set, you might just need to use the format statement it builds in your proc report step.

HTH, Don Henderson

Code follows:

%macro ResetLengths(data=, out= );

%local format sqlcode format;

/* determine the max length for each character variable */ proc sql noprint; select ' max( length(' || name || ' )) as ' || name into :sqlcode separated by ', ' from dictionary.columns where libname = "%upcase( %scan( &data, 1, . ) )" and memname = "%upcase( %scan( &data, 2, . ) )" and type = "char" ; create table lengths as select &sqlcode from &data; quit;

data _null_; set lengths; length fmt $1024; array lengths _numeric_; do over lengths; fmt = trim(fmt) || ' ' || vname(lengths) || ' $' || trim(left(put(lengths,4.))) || '.'; end; call symput('FORMAT',fmt); run;

%if %length(&out) = 0 %then %let out = &data;

data &out; format &format; informat &format; set &data; run;

%mend ResetLengths;

----- Original Message ----- From: "Suzanne D. McCoy" <smccoy@LUCIDAN.COM> Newsgroups: bit.listserv.sas-l To: <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2002 4:58 PM Subject: Re: proc report width=

> You could also just shortcut the entire issue by using a default width for > the columns and the flow option. The only macro alternative I can think of > off the top is my head is to bump through the entire dataset again to > determine the lengths via a max(length(for each variable)) and set them to > macro variables, using dictionary.columns to determine the character > variables, but what is that going to do to the efficiency/runtime? > > -- > Suzanne D. McCoy > Lucid Analytics Corp. > "Intelligence Unleashed" > > > I asked for this capability in PROC REPORT a while back; apparently > > there's not enough perceived demand to warrant the programming effort. > > If you want it, send mail to suggest@sas.com. > > > > > > > > > > -- > > JackHamilton@FirstHealth.com > > Manager, Technical Development > > METRICS Department, First Health > > West Sacramento, California USA > > > > > >>>> Kevin Auslander <kauslander@TERRECRS.COM> 11/19/2002 1:33 PM >>> > > I find that I frequently need to set the width of each > > character variable manually when using proc report. I usually set it > > to > > a value that is equal to max(the longest word in the label, the length > > of the longest data value). Setting the width for each variable > > becomes > > very tedious when I have to create several reports with many variables > > each. I read in the help files that proc report will automatically set > > the column width to accommodate the format of the variable. So what I > > need is a macro that will set the format of each variable to max(the > > longest word in the label, the length of the longest data value). > > Does > > anyone out there have a macro that does this? Or does anyone have a > > different solution to the problem. TIA > > > > > > Kevin >