Functions and CALL Routines under OpenVMS

COLLATE Function: OpenVMS

Returns an ASCII collating sequence character string.

Category:	Character
OpenVMS specifics:	ASCII collating sequence
See:	COLLATE Function in SAS Language Reference: Dictionary

Syntax
Details
Examples: How SAS Determines the Length of the Return String
	Truncating the Variable Length to 200 Characters
	Specifying a Length Greater than 200 Characters
	MISSING TOPIC TITLE
See Also

Syntax

COLLATE(start-position<,end-position>) | (start-position<,,length>)

start-position: specifies the numeric position in the collating sequence of the first character to be returned.
end-position: specifies the numeric position in the collating sequence of the last character to be returned.
length: specifies the number of characters in the collating sequence.

Details

The COLLATE function returns a string of ASCII characters, which can range in value from 0 to 255. Characters 128 to 255 are usually special control characters such as special fonts, but the COLLATE function returns them.

Unless you assign the return value of the COLLATE function to a variable with a defined length less than 200, the ASCII collating sequence string is padded with blanks to a length of 200. If the ASCII collating sequence is greater than 200 characters, you must specify the length for the return string in a LENGTH statement; otherwise, the returned string will be truncated to a length of 200 characters. For more information, see the following examples.

Examples: How SAS Determines the Length of the Return String

Example 1: Truncating the Variable Length to 200 Characters

Because the following code does not include a LENGTH statement, the length attribute for the Address variable is truncated to 200 characters.

data sales;
   Address=collate(1,241);
run;

proc contents;
run;

Portion of PROC CONTENTS Output

Alphabetic List of Variables and Attributes
#      Variable      Type      Len

1      Address       Char      200

Because length for Address is limited to 200 characters, the returned string from the COLLATE function will be limited to 200 characters.

Example 2: Specifying a Length Greater than 200 Characters

To specify a length greater than 200 characters for a specific variable, you can use the LENGTH statement. In the following code, the length of Address is specified as 240 characters.

data sales;
   length Address $240;
   Address=collate(1,241);
run;

proc contents;
run;

Portion of PROC CONTENTS Output

Alphabetic List of Variables and Attributes
#      Variable      Type      Len

1      Address       Char      240

Because the length of Address is set to 240 characters, the returned string from the COLLATE function will contain 240 characters.