$w. Informat

Syntax Description

w

specifies the width of the input field. You must specify w because SAS does not supply a default value.

Range:

1-32767

The $w. informat trims leading blanks and left aligns the values before storing the text. In addition, if a field contains only blanks and a single period, $w. converts the period to a blank because it interprets the period as a missing value. The $w. informat treats two or more periods in a field as character data.

The $w. informat is almost identical to the $CHARw. informat. However, $CHARw. does not trim leading blanks nor does it convert a single period in an input field to a blank, while $w. does both.

input @1 name $5.;

----+----1

XYZ

XYZ##

 XYZ

XYZ##

  .

 X YZ

X#YZ#

Copyright © 2011 by SAS Institute Inc., Cary, NC, USA. All rights reserved.