RBw.d Informat: Windows

Reads real-binary (floating-point) data.

Category: Numeric
Windows specifics: native floating-point representation
See: RBw.d Informat in SAS Formats and Informats: Reference

Syntax

RBw.d

Required Arguments

w

specifies the width of the input field.

Default 4
Range 2–8

d

specifies the power of 10 by which to divide the input value. SAS uses the d value even if the input data contain decimal points.

Range 0–10

Details

The RBw.d informat reads numeric data that are stored in microcomputer real binary (floating-point) notation. Numeric data for scientific calculations are often stored in floating-point notation. (SAS stores all numeric values in floating-point notation.) A floating-point value consists of two parts: a mantissa that gives the value and an exponent that gives the value's magnitude. It is usually impossible to key in floating-point binary data directly from a terminal, but many programs write floating-point binary data.