Formats under z/OS

BESTw. Format: z/OS

SAS software chooses the best notation.

Numeric
Width range:	1-32 bytes
Default width:	12
Alignment:	right
z/OS specifics:	writes output as EBCDIC, minimum and maximum values
See:	BESTw. Format in SAS Language Reference: Dictionary

Details
See Also

Details

Numbers are written using EBCDIC code with one digit per byte. Because the value is output as EBCDIC text characters, you can print it without further formatting.

The range of the magnitude of numbers is from 5.4 x 10^-79 to 7.2 x 10⁷⁵. Any number that is outside this range causes an overflow error. All numeric variables that are represented by SAS software are within this range.

The following examples illustrate the use of BESTw. under z/OS:

Value	Format	Results	Notes
1234	best6.	bb1234
-1234	best6.	b-1234
12.34	best6.	b12.34
12345678	best8.	1.2346E8	truncated and rounded

Note: In these examples, the Value column represents the value of the SAS numeric variable. The Results column shows what the numeric output looks like when viewed from a text editor. The b characters in the Results column indicate blank spaces. See EBCDIC Code: Commonly Used Characters for a table of commonly used EBCDIC characters. [cautionend]