Options for Commands, Statements, and Procedures for NLS

TRANSCODE= Option

Specifies an attribute in the ATTRIB statement (which associates a format, informat, label, and length with one or more variables) that indicates whether character variables are to be transcoded.

Valid in:	the ATTRIB statement in a DATA step
Category:	Information
Type:	Declarative
See:	ATTRIB Statement under Windows UNIX z/OS

Syntax
Arguments
Examples
	Example 1: Using the TRANSCODE= Option With the SET Statement
	Example 2: Using the TRANSCODE= Option With the MERGE Statement
See Also

specifies one or more attributes to assign to variable-list. Multiple attributes can be specified in the ATTRIB statement. For a complete list of attributes, see the ATTRIB Statement in SAS Language Reference: Dictionary.

TRANSCODE= YES | NO

Specifies whether to transcode character variables. Use TRANSCODE=NO to suppress transcoding. For more information, see Overview to Transcoding.

Default:	YES
Restriction:	The TRANSCODE=NO attribute is not supported by some SAS Workspace Server clients. Variables with TRANSCODE=NO are not returned in SAS 9.2. Before SAS 9.2, variables with TRANSCODE=NO are transcoded. Prior releases of SAS cannot access a SAS 9.2 data set that contains a variable with a TRANSCODE=NO attribute.
Interaction:	You can use the VTRANSCODE and VTRANSCODEX functions to return whether transcoding is on or off for a character variable.
Interaction:	If the TRANSCODE= attribute is set to NO for any character variable in a data set, PROC CONTENTS prints a transcode column that contains the TRANSCODE= value for each variable in the data set. If all variables in the data set are set to the default TRANSCODE= value (YES), no transcode column is printed.

Examples

Example 1: Using the TRANSCODE= Option With the SET Statement

When you use the SET statement to create a data set from several data sets, SAS makes the TRANSCODE= attribute of the variable in the output data set equal to the TRANSCODE= value of the variable in the first data set. In this example, the variable Z's TRANSCODE= attribute in data set A is NO because B is the first data set and Z's TRANSCODE= attribute in data set B is NO.

data b;
   length z $4;
   z = 'ice';
   attrib z transcode = NO;
data c;
   length z $4;
   z = 'snow';
   attrib z transcode = YES;
data a;
   set b;
   set c;
   /* Check transcode setting for variable Z */
   rc1 = vtranscode(z);
   put rc1=;
run;

Example 2: Using the TRANSCODE= Option With the MERGE Statement

When you use the MERGE statement to create a data set from several data sets, SAS makes the TRANSCODE= attribute of the variable in the output data set equal to the TRANSCODE= value of the variable in the first data set. In this example, the variable Z's TRANSCODE= attribute in data set A is YES because C is the first data set and Z's TRANSCODE= attribute in data set C is YES.

data b;
   length z $4;
   z = 'ice';
   attrib z transcode = NO;
data c;
   length z $4;
   z = 'snow';
   attrib z transcode = YES;
data a;
   merge c b;
   /* Check transcode setting for variable Z */
   rc1 = vtranscode(z);
   put rc1=;
run;

Note: The TRANSCODE= attribute is set when the variable is first seen on an input data set or in an ATTRIB TRANSCODE= statement. If a SET or MERGE statement comes before an ATTRIB TRANSCODE= statement and the TRANSCODE= attribute contradicts the SET statement, an error message will occur. [cautionend]

TRANSCODE= Option

Syntax

Arguments

Example 1: Using the TRANSCODE= Option With the SET Statement

Example 2: Using the TRANSCODE= Option With the MERGE Statement