System Options for NLS

ENCODING System Option: OpenVMS, UNIX, Windows, and z/OS

Specifies the default character-set encoding for the SAS session.

OpenVMS and UNIX Default:	latin1
z/OS Default:	OPEN_ED-1047
Windows Default:	wlatin1
Valid in:	configuration file, SAS invocation
Category:	Environment control: Language control
PROC OPTIONS GROUP:	LANGUAGECONTROL

Syntax
Details
See Also

Syntax

-ENCODING= ASCIIANY | EBCDICANY | encoding-value (UNIX and Windows)

ENCODING= encoding-value (OpenVMS, UNIX, Windows, and z/OS)

ASCIIANY

Transcoding normally occurs when SAS detects that the session encoding and data set encoding are different. ASCIIANY enables you to create a data set that SAS will not transcode if the SAS session that accesses the data set has a session that encoding value of ASCII. If you transfer the data set to a machine that uses EBCDIC encoding, transcoding occurs.

Note: ANY is a synonym for binary. Because the data is binary, the actual encoding is irrelevant. [cautionend]

EBCDICANY

is valid only for z/OS. Transcoding normally occurs when SAS detects that the session encoding and the data set encoding are different. EBCDICANY enables you to create a data set that SAS will not transcode if the SAS session accessing the data set has a session encoding value of EBCDIC. If you transfer the data set to a machine that uses ASCII encoding, transcoding occurs.

encoding-value

For valid values for all operating environments, see Encoding Values for a SAS Session.

Details

A character-set encoding is a set of characters that have been mapped to numeric values called code points.

The ENCODING= system option is valid only when the NONLSCOMPATMODE system option is set.

The encoding for a SAS session is determined by the values of the ENCODING=, LOCALE=, DBCSTYPE=, and DBCSLANG= system options as follows:

If the ENCODING= and LOCALE= system options are not specified, the default value is ENCODING=. For OpenVMS and UNIX, the default value is latin1; for Windows, the default value is wlatin1; for z/OS, the default is OPEN_ED-1047.
If both LOCALE= and ENCODING= are specified, the session encoding is the value that is specified by the ENCODING= option.
If LOCALE= is specified and ENCODING= is not specified, SAS infers the appropriate encoding value from the LOCALE= value.
If the DBCS option is set, the values for the DBCSLANG= and DBCSTYPE= system options determine the ENCODING= and LOCALE= values.