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$w.

Category:

Character

Syntax Description

w

specifies the width of the input field. You must specify w because SAS does not supply a default value.

Range:

1-32767

Details

The $w. informat trims leading blanks and left aligns the values before storing the text. In addition, if a field contains only blanks and a single period, $w. converts the period to a blank because it interprets the period as a missing value. The $w. informat treats two or more periods in a field as character data.

Comparisons

The $w. informat is almost identical to the $CHARw. informat. However, $CHARw. does not trim leading blanks nor does it convert a single period in an input field to a blank, while $w. does both.

Examples

input @1 name $5.;

Data Lines	Results*
----+----1
XYZ	XYZþþ
XYZ	XYZþþ
.
X YZ	XþYZþ
*The character þ represents a blank space.

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