SAS Formats and Informats

You can submit DATA steps and PROC steps to do the following:
  • store and apply SAS formats and informats for a SAS data set.
    Note: The engine does not support file replacement, which means that you cannot overwrite an existing file to change a stored SAS format. However, you can submit the FORMAT statement to display the data with a different format.
  • apply SAS formats and informats for DB2, Greenplum, MySQL, ODBC databases, Oracle, and Teradata. You cannot store SAS formats or informats for those data sources.
When a table is created, the engine validates a specified SAS format or informat name. Both SAS supplied and user-defined formats and informats can be used.