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If you are reading data with DATALINES, or have source statements which are longer than 256 bytes, SAS truncates the data or the source statement at 256 bytes.

If source statements are longer than 256 bytes, SAS may generate an error based on any improper syntax resulting from the source statement truncation or issue a warning message indicating a truncated record.

If source statements are brought into the program with a %INCLUDE statement you can change the default 256 byte length by specifying the LRECL= option directly in the %INCLUDE statement following the / (forward slash). For example:

   %include "c:\myfiles\mySASsource" / lrecl=500;

You can also use a FILENAME statement to assign a fileref to the file which contains the source code and specify an appropriate value for the LRECL= option, then use the fileref on the %INCLUDE statement. For further information on the %INCLUDE statement as well as limitations on length or possible truncated data, records, or source lines see the following SAS Notes: #005953, #008328 , #0015883 and #039619 .

If the DATALINES are longer than 256 bytes, the variables whose values are past the 256th byte in the logical record are assigned missing values. SAS does not generate a message in the SAS Log indicating that one or more records were truncated. In addition, you cannot specify the LRECL= option on the INFILE statement with the DATALINES file specification to prevent the truncation.

To circumvent this problem either:

  1) copy the DATALINES to an external file and use the path to
     that file (surrounded by quotes) instead of DATALINES as the
     file specification on the INFILE statement.  This allows you
     to use the LRECL= option to specify the maximum logical
     record length, or

  2) split the DATALINES so that each segment is less than 256
     bytes, and the break occurs at the same variable(s) for each
     logical record, then use line pointer controls (/) on your
     INPUT statement to advance input pointer through all the
     segments that comprise the logical record.

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