Considerations and Limitations with User-Defined Formats

If you create a local user-defined format with the same name but a different value than a user-defined format that was published previously to the database a check sum ERROR warning occurs and the local format is used. This warning indicates that the local and published formats differ. The query is processed by SAS instead of inside the database.

If you want the query to be processed inside the database, you need to redefine the local format to match the published version and rerun the query.
Trailing blanks in PROC FORMAT labels are lost when publishing a picture format.
Avoid using PICTURE formats with the MULTILABEL option. You cannot successfully create a CNTLOUT= data set when PICTURE formats are present. This a known problem in PROC FORMAT.
If you use the MULTILABEL option, only the first label that is found is returned. For more information, see the PROC FORMAT MULTILABEL option in the Base SAS Procedures Guide.
The format publishing macros reject a format unless the LANGUAGE= option is set to English or is not specified.
Although the format catalog can contain informats, the format publishing macros ignore the informats.
User-defined formats that include a format that SAS supplies are not supported.