User-Defined Formats in the Netezza Data Warehouse

Introduction to User-Defined Formats in Netezza

You can use PROC FORMAT to create user-defined formats and store them in a format catalog. You can then use the %INDNZ_PUBLISH_FORMATS macro to export the user-defined format definitions to the Netezza data warehouse where the SAS_PUT( ) function can reference them.
For more information about the %INDNZ_PUBLISH_FORMATS macro, see Publishing SAS Formats in Netezza. For more information about the SAS_PUT( ) function, see Using the SAS_PUT( ) Function in the Netezza Data Warehouse .

Netezza Considerations and Limitations When Using the FMTCAT= Options

If you use the FMTCAT= option to specify a format catalog in the %INDNZ_PUBLISH_FORMATS macro, the following limitations apply if you are using a character set encoding other than Latin1:
  • Picture formats are not supported. The picture format supports only Latin1 characters.
  • If the format value's encoded string is longer than 256 bytes, the string is truncated and a warning is printed to the SAS log.