Using a user-defined format in a WHERE clause might prevent the SPD Engine from performing engine-level optimization.  

For example, in a reported case, the SUMMARY procedure was pointing to an SPD Engine data set and using a WHERE clause with user-defined formats.  Pointing to a data set with PROC SUMMARY takes less than a second to run, whereas pointing to an SPD Engine data set takes more than 40 minutes to run. 

The following warning occurred in the log:

To see an example of code that can cause the issue, click the Full Code tab.

Click the Hot Fix tab in this note to access the hot fix for this issue.

Operating System and Release Information

LIBNAME myspde SPDE 'c:\tmp\SPDE'; 

proc summary data=myspde.test  missing;
   where
        
         (((put(MONYY,newformat.) = "Value13")
            or ( trim(left(put(MONYY, ? MONYY.))) = "Value13"))
         OR
         ((put(YYQTR,newformat.) = "Value5")
           or ( trim(left(put(YYQTR, ? YYQ6.))) = "Value5"))
         OR
         ((put(MONYY,newformat.) = "Value2")
         or ( trim(left(put(MONYY, ? MONYY.))) = "Value2"))) ;
format MONYY ;
   format YYQTR ;
   format HOSPOPTID ;
   class MONYY / ASCENDING order=UNFORMATTED ;
   class YYQTR / ASCENDING order=UNFORMATTED ;
   class HOSPOPTID / ASCENDING order=UNFORMATTED ;

 types ()
    MONYY
    YYQTR
    MONYY* YYQTR
    HOSPOPTID
    MONYY*YYQTR*HOSPOPTID
    ;
     format COUNTCOVERS_W best16.;
     var
     COUNTCOVERS_W
     ;
    output out=WORK.summaryOutput(drop=_freq_)
           SUM(COUNTCOVERS_W)=M0003755
   ;
   run;

A fix for this issue for Base SAS 9.4_M4 is available at: