Date:         Fri, 13 Dec 2002 11:28:36 -0500
Reply-To:     Ian Whitlock <WHITLOI1@WESTAT.COM>
Sender:       "SAS(r) Discussion" <SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Ian Whitlock <WHITLOI1@WESTAT.COM>
Subject:      Re: SAS name characteristics
Comments: To: "Fehd, Ronald J. (PHPPO)" <rjf2@CDC.GOV>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"

Ron,

SUGIs are dangerous, you might even find a guy in a large purple hat at one
of them.

IanWhitlock@westat.com

-----Original Message-----
From: Fehd, Ronald J. (PHPPO) [mailto:rjf2@CDC.GOV]
Sent: Friday, December 13, 2002 10:03 AM
To: SAS-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: SAS name characteristics


> From: Richard A. DeVenezia [mailto:radevenz@IX.NETCOM.COM]
> Oneline Help is lacking, however OnlineDoc's has a section
> "Dictionary of Language Elements", "Rules for Words and
> Names" with a table "Maximum Length of User-Supplied SAS Names"
>
> View descriptors - still 8
> Library names - still 8
> Datasets - 32, was 8
> Dataset labels - 256, was 40
> ...
>
> Note: with option validvarname = any there is no restriction
> on the characters of a 'SASName', however, non-old rule
> SASNames need to be indicated using a 'nliteral', which is a
> value in quotes followed by the letter N. (Similar to rules
> for date, time and datetime constants)
>
> options validvarname = any;
> data _null_;
>   '123456'N = 123456;
>   '!@#$%^'N = 'Hello there';
>   A = '123456'N;
> run;

for the truly hip who what their names at the top of the listing
one can have leading spaces in these character string names:

data ' youGottaReadThis'N (label='Very Imporatant Info Here');

I swear I saw this demoed at SUGI.

Ron Fehd  the macro maven  CDC Atlanta GA USA RJF2@cdc.gov
--> cheerful provider of UNTESTED SAS code from the Clue?Gee!Wrx <--

Bureaucracy at its worst is better than bureaucracy at its best
-- Plato, in Beetle Bailey comic strip, 1985Mar01