RolandRB wrote: > I think there is a profound misunderstanding about the nature of > informats when I see a statement like this: > > "Now to be accurate, as the more informed members of SAS-L have said, > informats read character data and transform it to either numeric or > character." > > I would argue that there are a number of informats that read NUMERIC > data... discourse ensues ...

A more accurate description of what informats do is likely to confusing to the layuser of SAS.

To me, an informat is a specification for transforming a sequence of bytes or bits into either a SAS numeric value or SAS character value.

The operant behavior of an informat is an automatic inline function call whose processing is specific to the informat name, the arguments W and D, and the source byte sequence.

If Potter Stewart were a SAS programmer, he might have been quoted as follows: "informats" are hard to define, but "I know it when I see it". :)

-- Richard A. DeVenezia http://www.devenezia.com/