VALIDVARNAME= System Option

Syntax Description

V7

specifies that variable names must follow these rules:

• The length of a SAS variable names can be up to 32 characters.
• The first character must begin with a letter of the Latin alphabet (A - Z, a - z) or the underscore. Subsequent characters can be letters of the Latin alphabet, numerals, or underscores.
• Trailing blanks are ignored. The variable name alignment is left justified.
• A variable name cannot contain blanks or special characters except for the underscore.
• A variable name can contain mixed-case letters. SAS stores and writes the variable name in the same case that is used in the first reference to the variable. However, when SAS processes a variable name, SAS internally converts it to uppercase. Therefore, you cannot use the same variable name with a different combination of uppercase and lowercase letters to represent different variables. For example, cat, Cat, and CAT all represent the same variable.
• Do not assign variables the names of special SAS automatic variables (such as _N_ and _ERROR_) or variable list names (such as _NUMERIC_, _CHARACTER_, and _ALL_) to variables.

Examples:season=’summer’;

percent_of_profit=percent;

UPCASE

specifies that the variable name follows the same rules as V7, except that the variable name is uppercase, as in earlier versions of SAS.

ANY

specifies that SAS variable names must follow these rules:

• The name can begin with or contain any characters, including blanks, national characters, special characters, and multi-byte characters.
• The name can be up to 32 bytes in length
• The name cannot contain any null bytes
• Leading blanks are preserved, but trailing blanks are ignored
• The name must contain at least one character. A name with all blanks is not permitted.
• The name contain mixed-case letters. SAS stores and writes the variable name in the same case that is used in the first reference to the variable. However, when SAS processes a variable name, SAS internally converts it to uppercase. Therefore, you cannot use the same variable name with a different combination of uppercase and lowercase letters to represent different variables. For example, cat, Cat, and CAT all represent the same variable.

Requirement:If you use any characters other than the ones that are valid when the VALIDVARNAME system option is set to V7 (letters of the Latin alphabet, numerals, or underscores), then you must express the variable name as a name literal and you must set VALIDVARNAME=ANY. If the name includes either the percent sign (%) or the ampersand (&), then you must use single quotation marks in the name literal in order to avoid interaction with the SAS Macro Facility. See SAS Name Literals in SAS Language Reference: Concepts and Avoiding Errors When Using Name Literals in SAS Language Reference: Concepts.

See:How Many Characters Can I Use When I Measure SAS Name Lengths in Bytes? in SAS Language Reference: Concepts

Examples:‘% of profit’n=percent;

‘items@warehouse’n=itemnum;

CAUTION:

Throughout SAS, using the name literal syntax with SAS member names that exceed the 32-byte limit or have excessive embedded quotation marks might cause unexpected results.

The intent of the VALIDVARNAME=ANY system option is to enable compatibility with other DBMS variable (column) naming conventions, such as allowing embedded blanks and national characters.