SAS 9.4 Language Reference, 6th Edition

Characters That Follow a

Character Constant Possible Interpretations Examples

n name literal 'My Table'n

t time constant '9:25:19pm't

x hexadecimal notation '534153'x

In the following example, '821't is evaluated as a time constant. For more information

about SAS time constants, see “Date, Time, and Datetime Constants” on page 95.

data work.europe;

set ia.europe;

if flight='821'then

flight='230';

run;

The program writes the following lines to the SAS log:

Log 6.1 Log Results from an Error Caused by a Time Literal Misinterpretation

ERROR: Invalid date/time/datetime constant '821't.

ERROR 77–185: Invalid number conversion on '821't.

ERROR 388–185: Expecting an arithmetic

operator.

Inserting a blank space between the ending quotation mark and the succeeding character

in the IF statement eliminates this misinterpretation. No error message is generated and

all observations with a FLIGHT value of 821 are replaced with a value of 230.

if flight='821' then

flight='230';

SAS Variables in Expressions

Definition

variable

is a set of data values that describe a given characteristic. A variable can be used in

an expression.

Automatic Numeric-Character Conversion

If you specify a variable in an expression, but the variable value does not match the type

called for, SAS attempts to convert the value to the expected type. SAS automatically

converts character variables to numeric variables and numeric variables to character

variables, according to the following rules:

• If you use a character variable with an operator that requires numeric operands, such

as the plus sign, SAS converts the character variable to numeric.

98 Chapter 6 • Expressions