Change Length of Character Variable in SAS Dataset

To change the length of a character variable in SAS, you can use the LENGTH statement before the SET statement in a data step.

data want;
    length name $30;
    set have;
run;

You can change the length of one or more character variables with the LENGTH statement.

data want;
    length name second_name third_name $30;
    set have;
run;

When working with character variables in your SAS datasets, the ability to easily be able to modify and change the properties of those variables is important.

One such case is if you want to change the length of a character variable in a SAS dataset.

To change the length of a character variable in SAS, you can use the LENGTH statement before the SET statement in a data step.

Below shows you a simple example of how you can change the length of a character variable in SAS.

data want;
    length name $30;
    set have;
run;

You can change the length of one or more character variables with the LENGTH statement.

If you want to change the length of multiple character variables, just list them before specifying the length.

Below shows you how to change the length of multiple variables in SAS.

data want;
    length name second_name third_name $30;
    set have;
run;

Hopefully this article has been useful for you to learn how to change the length of character variables in SAS.