Statements under UNIX

LENGTH Statement: UNIX

Specifies the number of bytes for storing variables.

Valid:	in a DATA step
UNIX specifics:	valid numeric variable lengths
See:	LENGTH Statement in SAS Language Reference: Dictionary

Syntax
See Also

Syntax

LENGTH <variable-1><...variable-n> <$> length <DEFAULT=n>

length: can range from 3 to 8 for numeric variables under UNIX. The minimum length you can specify for a numeric variable depends on the floating-point format used by your system. Because most systems use the IEEE floating-point format, the minimum is 3 bytes.
DEFAULT=n: changes the default number of bytes that are used for storing the values of newly created numeric variables from 8 to the value of n. Under UNIX, n can range from 3 to 8.