Avoiding Problems with Split DBCS Character Strings

When working with DBCS characters, review your data to make sure that SAS recognizes the entire character string when data is imported or converted or used in a DATA or a PROC step.

On mainframe systems that use shift out/shift in escape codes, DBCS character strings can become truncated during conversion across operating environments.

There is a possibility that DBCS character strings can be split when working with the PRINT, REPORT, TABULATE, and FREQ procedures. If undesirable splitting occurs, you might have to add spaces on either side of your DBCS character string to force the split to occur in a better place. The SPLIT= option can also be used with PROC REPORT and PROC PRINT to force string splitting in a better location.