Formats are instructions that SAS uses to write data values. Formats are used to control
the written appearance of data values, or, in some cases, to
group data values together for analysis.
User-defined formats
are specialized formats that are stored in a custom format library.
To incorporate user-defined formats, make them available as required
by the clients that you are using.
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The explorer, the designer, and
the viewers rely on formats that are available when data is loaded.
To make user-defined
formats available during autoload, see User-Defined Formats for Autoload.
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Other clients (such as the data
builder and SAS Enterprise Guide) rely on formats that are available
when data is accessed. Any user-defined formats must be known to the
appropriate SAS Application Server. The preferred method for making
user-defined formats available to a SAS Application Server is to use
a standard name and location for the custom format catalog as follows:
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Name the format catalog
formats.sas7bcat.
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On
each machine that hosts a workspace server, place the format catalog
in the SAS configuration directory under /SAS-application-server/SASEnvironment/SASFormats.