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From: "Keintz, H. Mark" on 28 Dec 2009 11:27
Art:

You're second question was: why does a character format
work even when the values-to-be-formatted (e.g. left
side of the equals sign) are not quoted?

Answer: Because SAS never said otherwise (or at least
doesn't say otherwise now). In fact, if you go to the
proc format documentation (the "Value Statement" section),
you'll see a character format example with unquoted
left-side values. Specifically:

value $ score
M=Male "(pass)"
F=Female "(pass)";


More interestingly, the RIGHT side has a sequence of
quoted and unquoted values. The quotes are needed to
mask the special character "(" from signalling a format
option (but a right paren [)] does NOT need to be masked).

Apparently quotes are only needed on the right side for
special characters that have meaning to the format
procedure, which in addition to "(", must also include
'-', ',', ';' the quote marks themselves, and probably
some others I haven't investigated.

But, as a matter of preserving sanity I'll be favoring
quotes on the right side even if I don't need any of
the special characters listed above.

Regards,
Mark



> -----Original Message-----
> From: SAS(r) Discussion [mailto:SAS-L(a)LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of
> Arthur Tabachneck
> Sent: Monday, December 28, 2009 10:20 AM
> To: SAS-L(a)LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Subject: Re: Can't format names be up to 30 or 31 chars long?
>
> Andrew (and anyone else following this thread),
>

.... stuff deleted ...
> >
> >A secondary question is why will the format even work (although it has
> >the same constaints as when written properly) when the characters to
> >be formatted aren't quoted?
> >
> >i.e., the following also works:
> >
> >PROC FORMAT;
> >VALUE $EDU
> >A ="<12 Yrs"
> >B ="12 Yrs"
> >C =">12 Yrs"
> >;
.... more deleted ...

> >
> >Art
> >------------
> >Earlier posts omitted for brevity. Entire thread can be found at:
> >http://www.listserv.uga.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0912d&L=sas-
> l&D=1&O=D&F=&S=&P=17728
> >
> >or, in short form: http://xrl.us/bgrggf
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