The $VARYING informat requires a length-variable that specifies the length of the variable value being read. When the length-variable is zero, the variable stores a blank value.

This is different from what the SAS® 9.2 documentation states. It states that if the value of the length-variable is zero, negative, or missing, SAS reads no data from the corresponding record.

The documentation will be changed in a future release.

Operating System and Release Information

Product Family	Product	System	SAS Release
			Reported	Fixed*
SAS System	Base SAS	z/OS	8.1 TS1M0	9.3 TS1M0
		OpenVMS VAX	8.1 TS1M0	9.3 TS1M0
		OS/2	8.1 TS1M0
		Microsoft Windows 95/98	8.1 TS1M0
		Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server	8.1 TS1M0
		Microsoft Windows 2000 Datacenter Server	8.1 TS1M0
		Microsoft Windows 2000 Server	8.1 TS1M0
		Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional	8.1 TS1M0
		Microsoft Windows NT Workstation	8.1 TS1M0
		Microsoft Windows XP Professional	8.1 TS1M0	9.3 TS1M0
		Windows Millennium Edition (Me)	8.1 TS1M0
		ABI+ for Intel Architecture	8.1 TS1M0	9.3 TS1M0
		AIX	8.1 TS1M0	9.3 TS1M0
		HP-UX	8.1 TS1M0	9.3 TS1M0
		IRIX	8.1 TS1M0	9.3 TS1M0
		OpenVMS Alpha	8.1 TS1M0	9.3 TS1M0
		Solaris	8.1 TS1M0	9.3 TS1M0
		Tru64 UNIX	8.1 TS1M0	9.3 TS1M0

* For software releases that are not yet generally available, the Fixed Release is the software release in which the problem is planned to be fixed.

This program demonstrates that when a value has been stored in a variable and the same value is read with $VARYING informat followed by a length-variable of zero, the variable is overwritten with a blank value.

---

data _null_;
  infile 'path'; 
  input @11 SYSTEM $4. @; 
  put system= ' before '; 
  LEN=0; 
  input @11 SYSTEM $VARYING4. LEN @; 
  put system= 'after '; 
run; 

SYSTEM=DDEV  before 
SYSTEM=  after 
SYSTEM=DDEV  before 
SYSTEM=  after 
SYSTEM=DDEV  before 
SYSTEM=  after 
SYSTEM=DDEV  before 
SYSTEM=  after

Type:	Problem Note
Priority:	medium
Topic:	SAS Reference ==> Informats ==> Character ==> $VARYING

Date Modified:	2011-06-01 13:13:13
Date Created:	2010-08-19 12:04:37