The VALIDVARNAME=ANY system option is ignored when it is specified in an OPTIONS statement before a PROC IMPORT step. Instead of honoring the VALIDVARNAME=ANY option, PROC IMPORT treats variable names that contain special characters as part of the name as if VALIDVARNAME=V7 was specified.

For example, a variable name of "test 1" is created as test_1 instead of "test 1"n when the VALIDVARNAME=ANY option is specified prior to PROC IMPORT.

There is currently no circumvention for this issue.

Beginning in SAS^® 9.4, the VALIDVARNAME=ANY option is honored when it is specified prior to PROC IMPORT.

Operating System and Release Information