var_info

Return information regarding a given variable in a dataset, e.g. the type of the variable, its (in)format, its length, ...

%var_info(dsn, var, _typ_=, _lab_=, _fmt_=, _len_=, _pos_=, _infmt_=, lib=WORK);

Arguments

• dsn : a dataset reference;
• var : a field name whose information is provided;
• lib : (option) output library; default (not passed or ' '): lib is set to WORK.

Returns

_typ_, _lab_, _fmt_, _infmt_, _len_, _pos_ : names of the macro variables used to store the output information about the variable in the dataset, respectively the type, the label, the format, the informat, the length and the position of the variable.

Examples

Let us consider the table _dstest30:

geo	value
BE	0
AT	0.1
BG	0.2
''	0.3
FR	0.4
IT	0.5

then if we want to retrieve information about the variable geo, we use for instance:

%let type=;
%let len=;
%let pos=;
%let vfmt=;
%var_info(_dstest30, value, _typ_=type, _len_=len, _pos_=pos, _vfmt_=vfmt);

which returns pos=1, type=C, len=2, vfmt=BEST12.

Run macro %_example_var_info for more examples.

See also

%var_check, %var_compare, %var_rename, %ds_order, %var_count, VARNUM, VARTYPE, VARLABEL, VARFMT, VARLEN, VARINFMT, VFORMAT,