The FORMAT Procedure

EXCLUDE Statement

Excludes entries from processing by the FMTLIB and CNTLOUT= options.

Restriction:	Only one EXCLUDE statement can appear in a PROC FORMAT step.
Restriction:	You cannot use a SELECT statement and an EXCLUDE statement within the same PROC FORMAT step.

EXCLUDE entry(s);

Required Arguments

entry(s)

specifies one or more catalog entries to exclude from processing. Catalog entry names are the same as the name of the informat or format that they store. Because informats and formats can have the same name, and because character and numeric informats or formats can have the same name, you must use certain prefixes when specifying informats and formats in the EXCLUDE statement. Follow these rules when specifying entries in the EXCLUDE statement:

Precede names of entries that contain character formats with a dollar sign ($).
Precede names of entries that contain character informats with an at sign and a dollar sign (for example, @$entry-name).
Precede names of entries that contain numeric informats with an at sign (@).
Specify names of entries that contain numeric formats without a prefix.

Shortcuts to Specifying Names

You can use the colon (:) and hyphen (-) wildcard characters to exclude entries. For example, the following EXCLUDE statement excludes all formats or informats that begin with the letter a.

exclude a:;

In addition, the following EXCLUDE statement excludes all formats or informats that occur alphabetically between apple and pear, inclusive:

exclude apple-pear;

FMTLIB Output

If you use the EXCLUDE statement without either FMTLIB or CNTLOUT= in the PROC FORMAT statement, then the procedure invokes the FMTLIB option and you receive FMTLIB option output.

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