The FORMAT statement changes a SAS
variable format from its default format; the default SAS variable
format is based on the data type of the DBMS column.
(See ACCESS Procedure Formats and Informats for ADABAS for information
about the default formats that the ACCESS Procedure assigns to your
DBMS data types.)
An editing statement,
such as FORMAT, must follow the CREATE statement and the database-description
statements when you create a descriptor.
See CREATE Statement for more information
about the order of statements.
The
column-identifier argument can be either the
column name or the positional equivalent from the LIST statement,
which is the number that represents the column's place in the access
descriptor. For example, to associate the DATE9. format with the BIRTHDATE
column and with the second column in the access descriptor, submit
the following statement:
format 2=date9. birthdate=date9.;
The column-identifier
is specified on the left and the SAS format is specified on the right
of the expression. The equal sign (=) is optional. If the column
name contains special characters or national characters, enclose the
name in quotation marks. You can enter formats for as many columns
as you want in one FORMAT statement.
You can use the FORMAT
statement with a view descriptor only if the ASSIGN statement that
was used when creating the access descriptor was specified with the
NO value.
Note: You do not have to issue
a SELECT statement in a view descriptor for the columns included in
the FORMAT statement. The FORMAT statement selects the columns. When
you use the FORMAT statement in access descriptors, the FORMAT statement
reselects columns that were previously dropped with the DROP statement.
FMT is the alias for
the FORMAT statement.