SAS Certification Prep Guide, 4th Edition

Using Informats

The Basics of Using Informats

An informat is an instruction that tells SAS how to read raw data. SAS provides many informats for reading standard and nonstandard data values. Here is a small sample.

Table 17.1 Selected Informats for Reading Data

PERCENTw.d	DATEw.	NENGOw.
$BINARYw.	DATETIMEw.	PDw.d
$VARYINGw.	HEXw.	PERCENTw.
$w.	JULIANw.	TIMEw.
COMMAw.d	MMDDYYw.	w.d

Here are some facts about informats:

• Each informat contains a w value to indicate the width of the raw data field.
• Each informat also contains a period, which is a required delimiter.
• For some informats, the optional d value specifies the number of implied decimal places.
• Informats for ...