An informat is a type
of SAS language element that applies a pattern to or executes instructions
for a data value to be read as input. Types of informats correspond
to the data's type: numeric, character, date, time, or timestamp.
The ability to create user-defined informats is also supported. Examples
of SAS informats are BINARY, DATE. and COMMA. For example, the following
value contains a dollar sign and commas:
$1,000,000
To
remove the dollar sign ($) and commas (,) before storing the numeric
value 1000000 in a variable, read this value with the COMMA11. informat.
Unless you explicitly
define a variable first, SAS uses the informat to determine whether
the variable is numeric or character. SAS also uses the informat to
determine the length of character variables.