Functions and CALL Routines

VARINFMT Function

Returns the informat that is assigned to a SAS data set variable.

Category:

SAS File I/O

Syntax
Arguments
Details
Examples
	Example 1: Using VARINFMT to Obtain the Informat of the Variable NAME
	Example 2: Using VARINFMT to Obtain the Informat of all the Variables in a Data Set
See Also

Syntax

VARINFMT(data-set-id,var-num)

Arguments

data-set-id

specifies the data set identifier that the OPEN function returns.

var-num

specifies the number of the variable's position in the SAS data set.

Tip:	This number is next to the variable in the list that is produced by the CONTENTS procedure.

Tip:	The VARNUM function returns this number.

Details

If no informat has been assigned to the variable, a blank string is returned.

Examples

Example 1: Using VARINFMT to Obtain the Informat of the Variable NAME

This example obtains the informat of the variable NAME in the SAS data set MYDATA.

%let dsid=%sysfunc(open(mydata,i));
%if &dsid %then
   %do;
      %let fmt=%sysfunc(varinfmt(&dsid,
                        %sysfunc(varnum
                           (&dsid,NAME))));
      %let rc=%sysfunc(close(&dsid));
   %end;

Example 2: Using VARINFMT to Obtain the Informat of all the Variables in a Data Set

This example creates a data set that contains the name and informat of the variables in MYDATA.

data vars;
   length name $ 8 informat $ 10 ;
   drop dsid i num rc;
   dsid=open("mydata","i");
   num=attrn(dsid,"nvars");
   do i=1 to num;
      name=varname(dsid,i);
      informat=varinfmt(dsid,i);
      output;
   end;
   rc=close(dsid);
run;